Richard Hammond triggered 18 years after 300mph horror Top Gear 𝕔rash

Top Gear star Richard Hammond has revealed he is still triggered by a horrific crash that left him in a coma, and can’t fly jets anymore because of the memories.

In 2006, the now-54-year-old was filming an episode of the BBC programme at Elvington airfield near York when the front-right tyre of the Vampire Dragster he was driving failed while going at 319mph.

He was in a coma for two weeks and suffered a brain injury, in addition to experiencing post-traumatic amnesia from the incident.

In a new episode of his podcast, Hammond has recalled that he is still triggered by certain sounds after surviving the near-fatal crash.

Richard Hammond has recalled a near-fatal crash 18 years ago

He spoke to former British Formula One driver Mark Blundell, who suffered a break failure while on a track in Rio de Janeiro in 1996, crashing into a wall at 196mph.

‘So I was conscious throughout the whole thing,’ Blundell told the Who We Are Now With Izzy And Richard Hammond podcast.

‘The only thing that really sticks in my mind was the noise because of the impact of a car hitting concrete and that’s the thing that actually like rattled my brain.’

Hammond, who was also conscious during his crash, said he now refuses to fly jet engines because the sound triggers him.

‘I fly helicopters but I don’t like flying jet rangers, because the way they start sounds exactly the same way that the jet car started,’ he said.

He agreed that he felt ‘totally the same,’ when Blundell explained: ‘When people talk about everything slows down… it didn’t slow down.’

The 57-year-old went on: ‘It was real time and it was me panicking to understand what I could do, I tried to hit my teammate, missed him, because I knew that hitting the concrete at that speed I was going to die.

‘I hit the concrete, bent the wheel in half, like all the crazy things you hear about, kids picking up cars because their parents are trapped underneath.

‘But actually, it was the split moment of numbers up.’

Hammond, who fronted Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May, replied: ‘I was completely calm, I’d done everything I could do.

‘I’ve pulled the parachute, I’d steered, braked, it was going upside down, there’s no roof and I thought “Oh, checking out now”.

‘No panic at that point, panic had gone, I’d done everything.’

This comes after Hammond revealed he is living with a health condition, ‘lost key syndrome’, after the crash, and fears being diagnosed with onset dementia.

By ‘lost key syndrome’, the father-of-two likely means dysexecutive syndrome, which is the dysregulation of executive functions strictly associated with frontal lobe damage, according to the British Medical Journal.

Explaining the condition, Richard told LADBible: ‘I think anybody who’s suffered a brain injury will probably agree that it never leaves you in the sense that there’s always a little bit of you [confused] if you lose your car keys or you forget something.

‘Mine was a frontal lobe injury, which would explain that. I’m left thinking, “Oh, no. Is that because of the brain injury? Or is it because I’m now 54? Is it just because I’ve lost my keys?”

‘The doctors actually call it “lost key syndrome” and it goes on and on.’

Late last year, the BBC officially made the decision to ‘rest’ Top Gear for the ‘foreseeable future’.

A statement said the broadcaster had ‘decided to rest the UK show for the foreseeable future.’

‘We will have more to say in the near future on this. We know resting the show will be disappointing news for fans, but it is the right thing to do,’ it read, teasing new projects with hosts Freddie, Chris Harris and Paddy McGuinness.

It had been taken off air in 2022 following Freddie Flintoff’s horror crash, bringing an end to his on-screen team with Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris.

Production had halted after Freddie, 45, was taken to hospital in December 2022 after he was injured in an accident at the Top Gear test track at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.