Just a couple of days ago, Grand Tour host Richard Hammond cheated death yet again when he crashed a £2 million supercar while filming an episode of the show. The TV presenter was filming in Switzerland for the show’s second season, together with Jeremy Clarkson and James May.
According to reports , Hammond was driving a Rimac Concept One — a Croatian electric supercar — when it went off track on the Hemberg Hill Climb. Hammond’s 220mph supercar plunged 100 feet down the hill before landing upside down. The former Top Gear host miraculously managed to scramble out of the vehicle before it burst into flames. He was then airlifted to a hospital in St. Gallen. A spokesperson said that Hammond was “conscious and talking” immediately after the terrifying incident.
Meanwhile, Clarkson took to DriveTribe to update their fans regarding Hammond’s condition and The Grand Tour’s situation. Jeremy admitted that the show’s filming is, in fact, affected while Hammond is indisposed. He shared that while he was writing the update, James May was waiting for a budget airline in Gatwick Airport so that he can shoot what Hammond was supposed to be doing. Clarkson also revealed that he has been rewriting scripts for the show, as he knows for a fact that Hammond won’t be able to do his driving duties in the next few months.
“Meanwhile, he [Hammond] is lying in a bed in the Swiss Alps, while pretty nurses attend to give his every need, and give him drugs,” Clarkson wrote.
Clarkson further joked that Hammond will be “back in the office next week,” which is fortunate “because we are out of toner for the photocopier, the girl who makes coffee is on holiday and the store room needs re-organizing. These, I feel are jobs he can do on one leg.”
Hammond escaped the crash with a fractured left knee and probably a lesson in keeping his promise to his family never to engage in dangerous stunts again. This has been Hammond’s third accident while filming previously for Top Gear and later on for The Grand Tour .
In 2006, he had nearly died when he lost control of a jet-powered Vampire dragster, which he was driving at 288mph. Back then, he was attempting to break the British land speed record for the BBC show. Hammond suffered serious head injuries and slipped into a coma for two weeks. He luckily made a full recovery. Earlier this year, he also suffered injuries after falling off his motorcycle while filming in Mozambique.
Hammond had apologized to his wife and daughters from his hospital bed a day after his crash in a video where he showed an X-ray of his fractured knee. He joked about hopefully getting a “Swiss Army knee” through an operation. Meanwhile, James May held a book titled The Idiot Brain as Hammond waved goodbye.
Both Clarkson and May were shaken as they witnessed the crash, describing it as “like a bomb going off.” The two were said to have rushed to the crash site, believing Hammond “was dead.”
[Featured Image Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images]