The return of the Hamster

December 3, 2006 by paul
Filed under: Uncategorized

A co-worker was asking about Hamster‘s progress after the huge accident* he had a few months ago, and I’d not seen anything for a few weeks so I checked the Top Gear website but there was no news so I headed over to the omnipotent Wikipedia – the latest updates say:

On 26 September and 27 September Hammond was reported to be improving so well he would be moved to a hospital nearer his home in Gloucestershire. On 28 September he was airlifted from Leeds General Infirmary to the BUPA hospital in Clifton, Bristol, to be closer to his home in Gloucestershire. His neurologist, consultant Stuart Ross, estimated a full-recovery time of 6 months.

It was reported that Hammond wanted the new series of Top Gear, as scheduled, to go ahead in October and also that he wished that the footage of the crash/race to be shown.

In a series of articles published in the Daily Mirror on 23 October he described what he remembered of the accident, and his recovery so far. At the time, he was preparing to return home after five weeks, though he had been originally told that he would be hospitalised for fifteen months.

On 1 November 2006, Jeremy Clarkson and James May received the National Television Award for best factual programme on behalf of ‘Top Gear’ and announced that Richard Hammond is ‘back to normal’ and made jokes about his bad driving. “I told you if one of us crashed we’d win this,” Clarkson quipped.

On 12 November 2006 he was back behind the wheel for the first time after the accident. He chose his Morgan, the classic British sports car, ahead of the other motors in his garage, which included a Porsche, vintage Ford Mustang and a Range Rover, and took things at a slow pace, not venturing above 50mph.

One of the Hamster fan club sites reports: “Having undertaken a two hour test of mental reasoning and other tests by specialists, his driving licence has been reinstated.”

It’s really good to see that he’s almost back to normal after such a short time.

*If you haven’t heard about the accident, here’s another snippet from Wikipedia:

At approximately 5:45pm BST on 20 September 2006, Hammond was seriously injured in a car crash while filming for Top Gear at the former RAF Elvington airfield near York. He was piloting a jet-powered Vampire car, which is theoretically capable of travelling at 370mph.