Richard Hammond fears health is still being affected by Top Gear crash 17 years on

Richard Hammond expressed fears that his health is still being impacted following his horror Top Gear crash back in 2006.

The TV presenter, 53, was in a coma for two weeks after the accident - which saw him crash a jet-powered dragster while driving at 320mph. Luckily, he eventually recovered and returned to Top Gear in 2007.

Fellow Top Gear star Freddie Flintoff was also involved in a near-fatal crash last year, which saw him sustain horrific injuries.

It was reported that the BBC had axed the show following the crash, but a spokesperson has since denied the reports.

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The Grand Tour star Richard opened up about his crash on the Diary Of A CEO podcast earlier this year, revealing that the damage from the crash 'could mean there's an increased risk' of symptoms of memory loss.

Though he says his working memory is still quite strong, Richard admitted his long term memory is 'not brilliant'.

He told Steven Bartlett: "I have to consciously write memories down and work hard to recall them sometimes.

"It might be because I'm 53, it might be because I'm working a lot and I'm tired, it might be the onset of something else."

He added that he is 'quite forgetful' in general, 'so I do drop the ball - I forget stuff, I forget keys'.

BBC

Richard presumes that a large part of that is just down to him as a person.

"That's just me, that's not a function of something going wrong. It's how I am."

That being said, he did suggest he 'probably needs an MRI scan'.

Richard has previously spoken about how close he came to death after the car crash, revealing that he suspects his wife is the reason he got out of his coma.

What Next?

"In hospital, intensive care, things were apparently not looking very good, but I didn't know. There was a lot of morphine floating around my system", he told YouTube channel What Next.

"I finally woke and I shared with my wife Mindy a dream I'd been having. A really, really vivid one - probably, partly, on a count of the morphine.

"And in my mind I'd been walking these hills here in the Lake District, overlooking Buttermere. I was having a lovely time strolling along and gradually I got a growing sense of — you know when you know you're in trouble? That feeling grew and grew."

When Richard walked toward one particular tree, the feeling of danger got more intense. Eventually, though, he turned back and suddenly he was awake.

After he told his wife Mindy about his dream, she told him what had been happening at the same time in the hospital room.

"She had been called into intensive care and told 'Mrs Hammond, I'm really sorry. Things aren't looking good... we're going to lose him'."

When told there was nothing she could do to help, Mindy asked if she could try shouting at him.

"And she did. And apparently she roared and screamed and swore at me 'don't you dare die'. And that's when I turned back from this tree in my dream. And that's when I woke."