Grant 4 Report post Posted September 20, 2006 Gidday All It appears that Richard Hammond has been badly injured in a jet powered car crash. It only happened a couple of hours ago, so details are still a bit sketchy. Lets hope he pulls through ok though, he is a funny guy. http://www.newswire.co.nz/main/viewstory.a...667&catid=0 Cheers Grant Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Carl 3 Report post Posted September 20, 2006 Funny how fast that spread, was reading stuff website when it appeared, better not make a Darwin award... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
E30-323ti 66 Report post Posted September 20, 2006 I read it here also: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1234566,00.html Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ED1RTY 2 Report post Posted September 20, 2006 Awww gutted, he seems like a great guy with a great sense of humour, not a good month for celebs!!! I think they should all stay indoors till summer!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gus 5 Report post Posted September 20, 2006 poor little bugger Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BMW POWER 2 Report post Posted September 20, 2006 Thast sh*t. First Brocky, now Hammond.FFS! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted September 20, 2006 He's just critical, last I heard. Any updates on that? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Ken Report post Posted September 21, 2006 Most sites are quoting the same article however the TVNZ site quotes the following: "Hammond was unconscious when paramedics arrived at the scene, but reportedly regained consciousness at the hospital." Ok - here's the latest... Hammond stable Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
320SHKBTE 0 Report post Posted September 22, 2006 hes cool, plus thats my fav program, agree with the bad month for celebs thing... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
p1_m3 8 Report post Posted September 22, 2006 Heard that he will make a good recovery now. May put a bit of a halt on the filming schedule though. Hamster gives JC a bit of stick like most of us would want to. Loved the show from wayback. Get well Hamster. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yuen 16 Report post Posted September 22, 2006 Yeah, I hope Hamster makes a speedy recovery, I only heard about it today and was shocked. He reportedly did 300mph on one run, damn that's nuts. They also say he has some brain damage so I hope it's not a critical area or anything like that and it will heal... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted September 23, 2006 (edited) If the brain damage is too bad, he could always be a parking warden... Edited September 23, 2006 by Jazzbass Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
conrod 1 Report post Posted September 23, 2006 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 “anywayâ€. 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 Motoringâ€. 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 meâ€. 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 “goodbyeâ€. “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 cameraâ€, 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. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yuen 16 Report post Posted September 24, 2006 Whew!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
E30stz 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2006 sounds like a bit of a PR job to me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
*sic 1 Report post Posted September 24, 2006 suprise cockface Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Spargo Report post Posted September 24, 2006 Good read. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Munts316i 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2006 god Clarkson is the man. It is abit odd for Sky news to insinuate that a man who drifts pagani zondas around corners for his pay-check and drives ferarris and jag's faster than most of us will ever imagine possible is not prepared enough to drive a jet-car. He'd be alot more prepared than most people who are driving one for the first time. Good to see that he is better, topgear would not have been the same without the trio. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
320SHKBTE 0 Report post Posted September 24, 2006 Yup hes gonna make a full recovery out of intensive care, joking about it wit the boys an his wife, go hampster!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Grant 4 Report post Posted September 25, 2006 I see that the BBC2 have indefinately postponed the airing of the new season of Top Gear (meant for airing in 3 weeks time). They won't resume filming until Richard Hammond is 100% fit and part of the show again. Damn, I was looking forward to the new season too. Cheers Grant Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
p1_m3 8 Report post Posted September 25, 2006 I see that the BBC2 have indefinately postponed the airing of the new season of Top Gear (meant for airing in 3 weeks time). They won't resume filming until Richard Hammond is 100% fit and part of the show again. Damn, I was looking forward to the new season too. Cheers Grant All we seem to get here are re-runs of re-runs with the odd new episode thrown in for good measure. We never get a whole season to my knowledge - maybe they dont have a big enough wallet? My brother used to tape them and send them down from the UK - without all the ad breaks (cos its BBC) and there were loads of them. Anyway - roll on the 3 musketeers and TG! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted September 25, 2006 They won't resume filming until Richard Hammond is 100% fit and part of the show again. I'm cool with that. Nice respect. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Andrew Report post Posted September 25, 2006 All we seem to get here are re-runs of re-runs with the odd new episode thrown in for good measure. We never get a whole season to my knowledge - maybe they dont have a big enough wallet? My brother used to tape them and send them down from the UK - without all the ad breaks (cos its BBC) and there were loads of them. Anyway - roll on the 3 musketeers and TG! We always get full seasons - there are only about 6 episodes per season and 2 seasons a year. You are getting here now the season from 6 months ago in the U.K. You can download them from finalgear.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
