Richard Hammond's wife reveals he is on his last chance

Richard Hammond's wife reveals he is on his last chance

The wife of Grand Tour star Richard Hammond today warned him he will have to quit TV if he crashes his car badly again - and predicted it'll be within a decade. 

The TV star, 47, was filming for the show in Switzerland when the car he was driving crashed and repeatedly flipped over before catching fire, moments after he managed to escape it.

In 2006 he suffered life-threatening head injuries and was in a coma following a high-speed crash as he filmed for BBC's Top Gear.

Mindy Hammond, 46, flew to be at her husband's bedside after he careered off the Swiss hillside and said today: 'I did say three strikes and you’re out. You’ve had two goes’.

His daughter Isabella, 16, who was behind the camera with younger si ster Willow, 13, who told her dad: 'Don't crash again will you'.

Mandy Hammond warned her husband Richard Hammond today he will have to quit if he crashes his car badly again

The couple laughed as Mrs Hammond revealed her husband played down the crash and told her on the phone: 'I've had a little shunt'

Richard Hammond pictured with his wife Mindy and daughters Willow (left) and Isabella (right), who told her dad: 'Don't crash again will you' 

The vehicle appeared to have rolled down a hill following the crash in Switzerland

This is the moment the former BBC star crashed in the supercar as he and co-hosts filmed their new show

Appearing together on ITV's This Morning she added: 'He has one of these every ten years so I’ve marked the next one in my diary’.

Mindy said she had predicted the crash after having a 'funny' feeling on the day before the crash.

She said: 'I actually called Richard on the day before which I don’t usually do, ever.

'Then the day of the accident I call him and he said he was fine but had a couple more runs to do.

'Then there was a phone call and he said: "I’d had a bit of a shunt". I did go quite a bit funny which I’ve never done before'.  

The star is on crutches for the foreseeable future and cannot run for another 18 months - but will be able to run much sooner

Mrs Hammond was out buying shoes with her daughters when he called her to say he had been hurt.

Her husband explained that after the call she 'kept shopping'.

She said: 'You have to keep doing something keep through it'. 

The 47-year-old former Top Gear star required reconstructive surgery on his fractured left knee having escaped the wreckage just seconds before it went up in flames on June 10. 

His wife was quick to rib him about how he has been while recovering at home over the past month.

As Mr Hammond mouthed 'brilliantly' Mindy said: ‘I’ve got teenage daughters and a nine year old man’.  

Richard Hammond has repeatedly apologised to his wife and two daughters Izzy, 16, and Willow, 13, for putting them through more trauma.

He said today that he believed he might die when his car flew off the mountain. 

He said he knew it was 'bad', adding: When the car touched down it smashed the bottom bit of my knee'.

When he was in hospital he revealed: 'They told me I've lost 7mm of height. I can't be losing that'.

Holly Willoughby responded with: So are you uneven?' and he said: 'Yes. No, no, I can't be running in circles for the rest of my life.'

When asked how co-stars Jeremy Clarkson and James May responded he joked: 'They wept Apparently neither of them have slept and I get a lot of calls and texts from both of them.

'They saw the contract going off the hill and were wo rried about all the legal work'. 

Richard Hammond said the crash shouldn't delay the next series of the Grand Tour and joked that his co-stars Jeremy Clarkson and James May were more worried about their contracts than his safety

Richard Hammond has repeatedly apologised to his wife and two daughters Izzy, 16, (right) and Willow, 13, (left) for putting them through more trauma

He was left with a knee injury from the crash - and needed metal plates inserted because his knee was shattered leaving him '7mm shorter'  he joked

Hammond's electric supercar burned at 1,500 degrees and needed hosing down for 8 hours

The inventor of Richard Hammond's super car was forced to reveal the secrets of the £2 million prototype to salvage experts before the charred remains could be removed from the crash site.

The salvage operation was 'complicated and dangerous', according to Swiss engineers.

Before safe removal, the Croatian manufacturer of the Rimac Concept One car had to explain the secret mech anics.

Markus Erni, of Autostrassenhilfe Schweiz, who was involved in the salvage operation, said: 'Since it was a prototype, we had to speak to the manufacturers and gain their confidence so that they could give us the details of where the various units are installed.

'The co-operation was very good and decisive which enabled a safe removal.'

He added: 'The danger of a crash involving an electric car is that the rescuers cannot perceive the dangers with their senses. Electricity cannot be heard or smelt like fuel. The danger is therefore much higher for the rescuers. It's complicated and dangerous.'

The car burned at temperatures of 1200 to 1500 degrees. It was hosed with cold water for eight hours before a tow truck could safely remove it.

The former Top Gear presenter crashed in Hemberg, Switzerland, on Saturday after noon.

He managed to escape from the burning car before it erupted into a fireball. 

Emil Schmid, from the salvage firm which removed the vehicle, said: 'For the bystander it may have looked as if a few clowns were standing around the wreck for hours without doing anything. But the built-in energy packages in an electric car continue to work after a crash and keep the temperatures very high.'

He said: 'I had never had such an expensive wreck on my truck.'

The smash came more than a decade after Hammond’s previous horror crash in 2006 when he flipped a car travelling at 318mph while filming for Top Gear, leaving him in a two-week coma with life-threatening head injuries.

Hammond, who was driving up a hill in the Rimac Concept One electric car when he crashe d last month, said previously: 'It was the very last run of the day, at the top just over the finish line it got away from me and I went over the edge.'

He then hurtled 100 metres down a hill, narrowly avoiding crashing into a house and leaving craters in the cliffside.

He told DriveTribe: 'I was very much aware at that point that it being a hillclimb and me being at the end of it, I would be at the top of the hill.

'So what followed was getting down the hill very very quickly.

'I was aware that I was up, that I was high, that inevitably the car was going to come down, and of course there was a moment of dread 'Oh god, I'm going to die'.

'Also I was aware that the car was taking just such a beating.'

He added: 'What was probably going through my mind was 'well this is it'. I thought 'I've had it'.'

Hammond said he was conscious all the way through the crash, saying: 'You're aware of sky, ground, sky, ground, sky, ground' and comparing it to 'being in a tumble dryer full of bricks going down a hill'.

He was left with a knee injury from the crash, and said: 'I do remember saying to drag me by my arms not my legs because I think I've broken that leg.'

However, the injury did not alarm his daughter Isabella, who told him: 'Daddy it looks like you've fallen over in the playground,' he said.

Hammond's most recent incident ? which left his co-stars Jeremy Clarkson and James May fearing he had been killed ? came 11 years after he suffered life-threatening head injuries following a high-speed crash as he filmed for BBC's Top Gear in 2006.

The presenter was in a coma for two weeks following the 288mph accident, bu t made a full recovery.

Richard Hammond reportedly escaped his horrific 120mph crash by leaping out of the supercar before it erupted into a fireball. Pictured, showing X-rays of his knee after the smash

Richard Hammond has showed off his new electric wheelchair just weeks after escaping a 120mph horror smash which saw his car turn into a 'fireball'

However, Hammond said he has no plans to swap the driving show for a safer cookery programme.

He said: 'I'd injure myself in the kitchen. We do exciting, difficult, sometimes dangerous stuff all the time. We are absolutely not gung ho or frivolous or thoughtless about it. Otherwise we wouldn't survive one series.

'We're not adrenaline junkies, we are in our 40s and 50s in their case. It needs the thrills in it but we evaluate everything we're doing.

'We take every precaution and we are also accepting of the fact that sometimes accidents happen. I've had it two or three times in my life.

'I wouldn't be doing it if I thought it was going t o kill me. But equally you could walk out of here and slip in the car park.

'It won't stop us being gung ho because we never have been and we're not. I know that sounds boring.

'We are all grown ups with families and careers, we don't want to crock ourselves.'

 

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