Richard Hammond will quit ‘The Grand Tour’ if he has another high-speed car cash.
The 47-year-old presenter has cheated death twice after being involved in two serious motoring accidents, which have left him hospitalised, and now his wife Mindy has told him he’s only got one more strike left until he’s banned from doing anymore TV stunts.
Speaking to the Daily Mail newspaper’s Event magazine, he said: "I’ve had my two strikes. I do have to be a bit more careful."
Richard was left temporarily wheelchair bound earlier this year after he careered off a hilltop in Switzerland while travelling at 120mph in his £2 million electric super car, which later burst into flames, but he was convinced he was about to die.
He said: "I thought, the longer I sail through the air upside down, the heavier the landing is likely to be. And it was heavy. The car was burning. That’s why I got out quick. I struggled, it was very difficult to move. I remember thinking: ‘Someone will come and get me out, they’ll be on their way by now.’ But then I realised: ‘No, I really do need to get out actually, it’s important!’ And I managed to get the crash helmet off in the car, which meant I could wriggle around and open the door and drag myself out.
"I think I was still in it [the car] when it went up. That’s why I decided to get out. I could hear it. That’s when there was a sudden urgency, that my brain said, hmm, let’s leave."
Richard was previously involved in a crash in 2006 but, last time, he was in a coma for two weeks after suffering some serious head injuries and, although he was conscious when he escaped the car in June, he tested his mental state.
He explained: "The paramedics must have thought I had gone nuts because I was lying there saying: ‘Right, I’m Richard Hammond, I’m driving a Rimac, I’m in Switzerland, I’m driving against Jeremy in a Lamborghini…’ I was listing what we were doing to prove to myself that I hadn’t hurt my head again, before calling for a tele-phone to call my wife Mindy. I needed to do that before they put me in a helicopter.’ ‘I said: ‘Look, this will get out on social media, I have had a bit of a shunt. Don’t worry, I haven’t hurt my head. I think I’ve broken a leg and some ribs and things but nothing that won’t fix. Don’t worry about me. I’ll call you from hospital.’"
Richard Hammond to quit Grand Tour if he has anymore crashes
