Richard Hammond Critical after Jet-Car Crash

[Titsy]

Quoting: F Body

BBC has just reported that he suffered a significant brain injury

Our MD said he was given a brand new helmet for the attempts; when they freed him from the wreckage one side of his helmet had quite a large crack in it and was partially stoved in where his head had hit against the roll bar as the car turned over....

Quoting: philoldsmobile

i notice the doctors say he is expected to make a good recovery..

I picked up on that one too....

[Incursus]

Well he's out of intensive care

[ianjpage]

yeah - seen the pics in the paper this morning of the car and it mangled!!!

[Pod]

Although to be fair, it sounds like he didn't have any injuries other than hitting his head on the roll cage. A 300mph crash could have been much much worse.

[Jo]

Yeah tru they say the only visible scar is a black eye

[F Body]

Good news the Hamster is out of the high dependancy unit and into a general ward
His wife has said that she's hopeful he will make a full recovery.

[VIPER]

WAY TO GO HAMPSTER!!!!!!!

By JEREMY CLARKSON
SEPTEMBER 23, 2006

IN the wee small hours of Thursday night, just 30 hours after what is almost certainly the world's fastest ever car crash, Richard Hammond suddenly sat up in bed, opened his eyes and asked what had happened.

"You've been in a car accident," I said. "Was I driving like a tw*t?" he asked, before getting out of bed and walking, shakily, to the lavatory.

His wife, Mindy, couldn't believe her eyes. None of us could. It really did seem that he'd had a look through death's door and decided he didn't like what he saw on the other side.

Later, he looked across at James May and said: "Hello C**k face."

Despite all the odds, it seemed we'd got our Hamster back . . .

Two years ago, Richard Hammond, James May and I agreed on a plan of action should one of us be killed while making our show, Top Gear.

We decided that after the announcement of the death was made in the following week's show, the next word should be "anyway".

So if the Hamster had ever careered through the Pearly Gates in a flaming 200mph fireball, I would put on a sombre face, say that Richard Hammond had died and then, after a small pause, say: "Anyway, the new Jag . . ."

It was a sort of joke. But then this week, it sort of wasn't.

The idea to drive a jet car actually came from Hammond. He skedaddled into the office one day and, bubbling with his trademark enthusiasm, said: "Hey, why don't we go somewhere and drive really fast? I don't mean supercar fast. I mean REALLY fast."

We all liked the idea. But what we liked even more was the idea of James May being given the assignment.

James is known to his fans as Captain Slow. He thinks dawdling is reckless and practises the art of what he calls "Christian Motoring". Mostly, this involves letting people out of side turnings and generally being Edwardian.
Putting him, and that '70s barnet, in a 370mph jet car was a bit like putting just Jane Austen at the helm of a space shuttle.

Immediately, James discovered a prior engagement and said he couldn't go. I, meanwhile, decided that I spent most of my thirties upside down in jet fighters and helicopter gunships, vomiting, and that these days I was far too fat.

That left Hammond, who was bouncing around like the donkey in Shrek shouting, "Pick me. Pick me".

And so we did.

Today, people who have absolutely no idea at all of how television works, (Yes, columnist Neil Lyndon — that's you, you sanctimonious, rent-a-soundbite little t**d) are saying that our producers push us to do more and more dangerous stunts in a bid for ratings.

Rubbish. Our producers spend their whole lives filling in health and safety forms and asking "are you sure?"

It's the presenters who come up with the hare-brained ideas and trans-continental races . . . not the backroom boys or the suits.

The car Hammond was set to drive is called the Vampire. It's powered by a Rolls-Royce Orpheus jet engine — as used by the Red Arrows — and currently holds the British land speed record of 300.3mph.


Top pals ... Richard with Clarkson and May on day before smash
I know one bloke who has driven it and he said simply: "It was brilliant. Although I did fill my pants."

So, the day before his fateful encounter, I shook Hammond's hand and said "goodbye".

"I'll probably be killed," he joked with a huge, beaming smile. "Anyway . . ."

He knew that he was embarking on a dangerous mission. And this is what no one seems to understand. He was looking forward to it. He likes the buzz.

He also knew that in Top Gear's 28-year history, no one on the show has ever been hurt. Not even Ray Mears can claim that. Or Anthea Turner or even Janet Ellis.

Right now no one knows for sure what caused the accident. Film footage seems to point the finger of blame at a tyre. And that's something you can't prepare for.

The tyres were from a Nascar racer in America, chosen specifically because they have super-stiff side walls. But it does seem that one of them burst.

How fast was Richard going? Well on the run before, he'd reached 315mph. So it's likely he'd hit that speed again. Richard isn't the sort of man who goes backwards. If he thought he'd done 315, he'd be trying to do 317. Or 320. Or five million if he'd thought there was half a chance.

People with beards and dirty fingernails are now saying he should never have been in that car, doing that kind of speed. They make out it's all terribly complicated and that you need years of practice. Rubbish. From what I understand, you sit there, you push a lever to light the afterburner and you then push another to shut off the fuel supply — it runs on heating oil — and deploy the parachutes. A hamster could do it. In fact, a hamster did.

Of course, behind the scenes, there was a small army of people making sure all went well. The Vampire team had even brought along a device to measure wind speed. Nothing that could be left to chance had been left to chance. But chance itself was still sitting there, waiting to bite. As the car began its series of sickening rolls, at a speed that boggles the mind, Richard's head was taking a ferocious pounding as his helmet smashed into the protective steel cage.

That was bad, but inside his body things were worse. He will have been subjected to maybe 100g. This means his brain will have weighed 71 stone. And it was rolling around inside his head at 300 revs per minute.

He landed upside-down, with his helmet, full of soil, buried in the earth. Amazingly, he was alive. And more than that, after a few minutes of unconsciousness, he was lucid.

"I want to do a piece to camera", he told the crew. He even fought the ambulancemen, who said he couldn't. No surprises there. Richard likes fighting. He does it a lot.

When I first heard of the crash, I was doing a rather miserable 175mph in an Aston Martin at our test track in Surrey. Everyone was quite upbeat. He didn't appear to be badly hurt. So I carried on driving round corners a little too quickly while shouting. I even went out for dinner with friends that night.

But later it became apparent that Richard was much more seriously injured than we'd thought. Doctors described his condition as critical.

At the hospital, his wife Mindy was being a star. She's one of those women who takes things in her stride but this was something else. She was laughing. She was joking.

She'd told daughters Willow and Izzy that Daddy had crashed another car and messed up his clothes. So she was taking him some clean ones. Richard had a bad night. At four he was giving very serious cause for concern but as the sun rose, he'd rallied a bit.

He didn't look very "rallied" to me. In fact, he looked like a Klingon, with a massively swollen eye and a huge lump on his forehead. The only good news, so far as I could see, was that his teeth were still as shiny and bright as ever.

It's genuinely hard to know how Mindy could be so upbeat when her husband was so badly dented. They'd just exchanged contracts on a new house. They were about to take out a joint mortgage. And yet, she was still cheerful. James May and I weren't. May even admits to having been "a bit unmanly" at one point.

There's one thing though. All we ever hear about the NHS is that it's rubbish. But anyone who ever experiences the emergency care it provides always notices just how un-rubbish it is in reality.

Leeds General Infirmary is a no star hospital. According to the bureaucrats, it's terrible. But trust me on this. From where Richard Hammond was lying, it was about as terrible as Angelina Jolie's left breast.

They were coping brilliantly with a forest of flowers being sent by well wishers. "They're lovely," said Mindy, and then, after a pause . . . "Do you think anyone will send cash donations?" Outside, in the real world, one internet site had raised £4,000 for the air ambulance that had saved Richard's life. Sky News was deluged with thousands of goodwill messages. The Sun received messages from all over the world. And there was some hope. While James was leaning over, whispering to our bashed-up friend, Mindy started to stroke his hair and I noticed the hamster's heart rate had shot up from 60 to 75 beats per minute.


"Christ, James. He thinks you're doing the stroking," I yelled.

Quickly, the heart beat settled down again. Then came the moment when I said: "The reason you're here mate is because you're a c**p driver."

And he smiled.

I knew then that he was going to pull through. And God it was a relief.

You can never tell after a brain injury what long-term implications there might be. He might have no sense of taste, or double vision. His teeth may go brown. Or he may be absolutely fine.

The only thing I knew was this: he was going to live.

And the next day after he said, "Hello C**kface" to James May, it looked like he might just win back everything else as well.

You'd think that the joyous news would silence the vultures circling the crash site since the accident, rejoicing in the fact that Top Gear had finally been taught its lesson that speed kills.

Somehow I doubt it though. The campaign to have us taken off the air — sparked curiously, by the BBC's own news website — will now be ramped up, fuelled by the environmentalists and spearheaded by muddle-headed road safety campaigners.

Richard is winning his fight. And now mine begins. To make sure that he has a show to come back to.

[Mustangus]

great article, shows how close they have obviously become since working together.

[Ponti]

Quoting: Titsy

Our MD said he was given a brand new helmet for the attempts; when they freed him from the wreckage one side of his helmet had quite a large crack in it and was partially stoved in where his head had hit against the roll bar as the car turned over....

Wonder if it had all the latest HANS equipment fitted to it like thay have to wear in Top Fuellers, Top Meth, Pro Mods and F1.
  Was watching NHRA drag racing on 5 the other night and 1 of their drivers flipped and rolled his car several times.  He was wearing a HANS unit and after a short while he was helped out the car and was standing with a bit of support.

 Otherwise Get well soon Hamster.

[Incursus]

Quoting: F Body

Good news the Hamster is out of the high dependancy unit and into a general ward  
His wife has said that she's hopeful he will make a full recovery.

Good news indeed

[ianjpage]

great to hear he making a good recovery!!

[Jo]

Fantastic article

[Ponti]

just found this linked of Eurodragsteif anyone interested

http://www.jetwebb.com/forum/fb.asp?m=2190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.jetwebb.com/forum/fb.asp?m=2190

[Roadkill]

Yay !

Good News.

[Titsy]

Quoting: 55starchief

anything recoverable or is it being used by crash investigation?

Apparently the fuzz are paying us a visit at the end of the week to go over the data....

[ianjpage]

Quoting: Titsy

Quoting: 55starchief
anything recoverable or is it being used by crash investigation?


Apparently the fuzz are paying us a visit at the end of the week to go over the data....

well make sure ya behave yerself now!!

[Titsy]

[55starchief]

Quoting: Titsy

Apparently the fuzz are paying us a visit at the end of the week to go over the data....

So have you seen the data?

[Titsy]

No, but he was chatting about it today....

Using th data from the first 5 runs he's mapped the bumps in the track to normalise it..... Using that he can show the the changes in ride height on the car, and you can see the instant the tyre blows out and the car drops....

When the car went sideways he was pulling a considerable amount of latteral G... It all happend extremely quickly and Hammonds reaction time in shutting down the engine and pulling the chute was darn quick...

Should it ever be aired the data can be synced with the video fotage and overlayed....

[55starchief]

was that a 1000hz system?

[Titsy]

Quoting: 55starchief

was that a 1000hz system?

Drop a zero mate.... 100Hz is the highest true sample rate currently possible with GPS, and yes...

[55starchief]

Quoting: Titsy

Drop a zero mate.... 100Hz is the highest true sample rate currently possible with GPS, and yes...

So its acurate then

[Roadkill]

Quoting: Titsy

It all happend extremely quickly and Hammonds reaction time in shutting down the engine and pulling the chute was darn quick...

Hats off to Da' Man.

Quoting: Titsy

Should it ever be aired the data can be synced with the video fotage and overlayed....

That'd be very cool.

[F Body]

From his hospital bed, Top Gear's Richard Hammond is asking the BBC to show on television the footage of the crash that put him there. But the BBC has said the show will only continue when Hammond is able to appear on it. With forces at work to have the show canceled (or prohibitively curtailed), the Hamster is also prepared to go on TV from his bedside.

In typical Top Gear fashion, Richard has been speeding down the fast lane towards full recovery, but he's afraid he won't be back fast enough, leaving no show for him to return to. According to a "close friend", "Richard could not stand to feel he was to blame for the demise of the show he loves... He's terrified they're going to axe it while he's stuck in hospital."

Now that's dedication to motor journalism.

[Roadkill]

Quoting: F Body

Now that's dedication to motor journalism.

The Dude's a Hero.