Top Gear Hammond hurt in bad crash

Quentin Willson former owner of a stage 1 109 I think jezza had a Rangie classic he has certainly championed them seemingly forever and bags them each time they appear James May has a 1970 Bentley T2 ( proper one) but has owned a landy Hamster's landy Buster is a V8 ragtop not sure if its a lightweight? The Stig - some say the Stig was built at Lode Lane or that he was an experiment that got out of hand at the Heritage Motor Centre who can tell

Derek

They seem to change the report every couple of hours and injury to his brain which I would guess to be concussion - brain damage is no hinderence to a career anyway or parliament would be empty by now

Derek

According to the BBC profile

On or around Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:21:00 GMT, "Derek" enlightened us thusly:

yeah, last one was "significant" brain damage I think. Having seen it, it can take a long time to get back to normal - think in years, rather than months. The initial recovery tends to be reasonably rapid, but the rate slows down.

Get well soon Richard.

For anyone counting, Richard's got both a 1956 Series 1 (a present from his wife a couple of years ago) and a 110 V8 with lots of blingy bits that used to be a fire tender. Mindy's also got a big yellow 110 G4 Special Edition.

Cheers,

Stu.

"Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond's condition showed no change overnight, said hospital authorities in Leeds."

Heard on Radio 2 this morning that Clarkson called him a 'cr@p driver' which raised a smile from Hammond. So grey matter is functioning to some degree.

Neil

I just wish that the various reporters I listened to yesterday would not continually say "he USED to do this or that, he WAS such and such". He is not dead give the lad a chance. Come on Hamster!!

On or around Fri, 22 Sep 2006 12:49:54 GMT, "Cyberwraith" enlightened us thusly:

quite. He may yet recover fully, or enough to resume his former occupation. This can happen with head injuries.

Given that he's always the one to get dumped into swimming pools in sinking cars, zapped by lightning, and so on, some might suggest that not much recovery is necessary.

Still, though, he always seems a fun bloke, and I do hope he makes a full recovery quickly. If he did have to pull out of broadcasting he'd be a great loss to TV.

According to the description in The Yorkshire Post, there's no obvious injury apparent, no broken bones, just a black eye.

There's a photograph that shows skid marks where the car veered off the runway, and intermittent marks in the grass, suggesting it didn't stay on the ground. Whatever else happened, the drag /chute was deployed.

Also in todays YP, an article by Frederic Manby wondering if Top Gear has been getting out of control with the driving stunts, and there's a sumour going around that Top Gear production staff were getting a bit anxious about health and safety, with very long filming days and fast vehicles.

That last is something I have some sympathy with. We do have rules on driving hours for people such as HGV drivers.

Oh, and while it apparently didn't have the necessary official observers, RH may have been breaking the British Land Speed Record.

What I want to see a welcome back edition of Top Gear, with RH explaining how he's going to work up to a really fast car, before Andy Green drives in to pick him up with a JCB. I want to know that, whatever other problems he might be left with, he's still the same person.

Well they can hardly say "he is", 'cos he quite plainly isn't right now. While saying "he is" might be politically correct, it's certainly the least accurate out of "is" and "was". Brain damage is a nasty thing, I've seen it in two people I know, making a full recovery is apparently rare even if the person looks and acts normal to most.

There is plenty of evidence, even with quite large portions of the human brain rendered useless, other parts of the brain 'learn' and take over the missing functions.

You're one of the scripters at Top Gear, might as well admit it. LOL

"Top Gear's James May says he is convinced his fellow presenter Richard Hammond is "perfectly intact" after a conversation at his hospital bedside."

On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:12:04 +0100, Ian Rawlings scribbled the following nonsense:

doesn't take long....

Heh..

Quite surprising though that on the beeb website, hammond articles have been the consistently most-read article since it happened. Goes to show how much of a s*it we give about the rest of the world ;-)

||| I thought it was an early Series 2, BICBW. || || According to the BBC profile ||

Corrected

|| We all wish the Hamster well - at least he was doing what he loves || most. --

Indeed we do.

Considering my latest purchase, i thought i better donate to the Yorkshire air ambulance..........