Richard Hammond’s Wife Reveals She Limited His Time With Daughters After Crash
Mindy Hammond, wife of Grand Tour presenter Richard Hammond, has opened up about what it was like to hear that her husband was involved in his death-defying crash in 2006. Hammond was driving the Vampire drag car, propelled by a rocket booster, when a front tyre gave out pushing the car across the Top Gear test track. This resulted in it flipping, and the presenter suffering from brain damage.
Mindy admitted that her husband’s behavior changed after the “brain injuries”, adding that she didn’t know what to expect after the incident, but was heartbroken when Richard didn’t recognise her as he laid in his hospital bed after the crash. On top of this, she soon realised that he couldn’t remember anything for more than “10 seconds”.
“No, you’re not my wife, my wife is French,” Richard told Mindy after she’d told him she was his wife.
She also recalled a story of her having to take their daughters out of the room because he was starting to get angry:
“He could feel the anger welling up, and was afraid that he might not be able to control himself.
“It must have been utterly terrifying for him.”
She continued:
“I tried to shield them from Daddy’s illness as much as I could, limiting their time together, and I avoided giving too much detail about his injury.”
Richard Hammond has also addressed this in a recent interview, as he admitted he can only now watch the footage of the crash:
“I think I did for a while but not so much now. Not really. I have now – but not a lot, no. It was quite bumpy.”
Hammond described getting back in the car as “genuinely weird”.
He added: “It came about (because) I had the guys from DriveTribe over at my place and we were trying to plan a look ahead to the year.
“And one of them said, ‘You do know that car has now been restored and rebuilt just down the road from where you live?’ And it seemed too good an opportunity, so we rang them.
“It was all a bit of fun until the moment came – and you can see it on the little video on the platform – and I got in and I did go a bit quiet. It was, ‘Oh, hang on’.
“It’s weird. I remember the last time I got into this, but I don’t remember the last time I got out of it. So technically I must still be in it. It was a strange feeling.”
