Former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has thanked emergency services for their help on the 20th anniversary of the crash in which he was nearly killed.

Hammond was seriously injured in September 2006 when the 320mph (515km/h) jet-powered Vampire dragster he was driving veered off the track at Elvington airfield, near York, during filming for the BBC show.

In an Instagram post, Hammond said he wanted to thank the members of the staff who rescued him and supported him following the accident “from the bottom of my heart”.

In the post, he spoke of the events of that day and said he would be “forever grateful” to all those who helped him in the aftermath of the crash.

He wrote: “Twenty years ago today, I came to an abrupt stop upside down in a Yorkshire field, convinced I was about to die.”

He said he recalled having pulled the lever to release the car’s parachute before trying to steer it away from disaster, “but disaster was, it seemed, my fate”.

“Having done everything I could to avert it, I gave myself over to that fate,” he said.

A front tyre had blown on the car and Hammond said in his post that he did not scream during the ensuing crash.

He explained that while “it wasn’t frightening”, it had “simply occurred to me that the next thing on my to do list was to die”.

The Top Gear star spent two weeks in a coma after the crash and returned to the show in early 2007.

In 2023, he spoke of how he believed his memory may have been affected by the accident.

In his post on social media marking the anniversary of the crash, Hammond said: “I am only here today to note this anniversary and write these words because of the work of the many people involved in rescuing me from the shattered car, flying me to hospital and treating me there.”

Hammond went on to name members of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and aftercare teams who helped him, saying he would be “forever grateful” to them.

He said he would not have had the lucky career breaks, amazing adventures around the world and two of the “happiest, kindest, most wonderfully talented and loving daughters” if he had not been helped that day.

“Thank you all from the bottom of my heart,” he added.

Hammond was also injured in a serious crash during a practice run for an electric car race 11 years later in Switzerland in June 2017, when his vehicle left the road, tumbled down a hillside and burst into flames close to a house.

After leaving Top Gear with co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson and James May in 2015, the trio reunited for The Grand Tour, which they presented until 2024.

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