Ailing Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has spoken for the first time about his horror 463km/h crash, saying he came close to death.
Hammond was attempting to break the British land speed record of 483km/h at a test track when his jet-powered car flipped and rolled, causing a significant brain injury.
Now, a mere 33 days after the accident, Hammond is reportedly ready to return home.
"At first they said I'd be in hospital for 15 months. Yet here I am ready to go back home after five weeks. I'm so bloody lucky. I can't believe it," he told reporters.
"At the time of the crash I was doing 288mph so it's incredible that every doctor I've spoken to tells me I'm on course for a 100 per cent recovery."
He added that he thought he was going to die when he regained consciousness.
"I was upside down inhaling a field. My nose and eyes were full of earth. I'd gone ploughing on my head," he said.
"My very last thought was, 'Oh bugger, that's gone wrong. Well, we're checking out now. You've had it'."
Hammond will reportedly be joining the Top Gear team in January to start filming the next series, according to Top Gear producer Andy Wilman.
"We plan to bring Top Gear back in January and the doctor said, 'That's fine - I don't see any problem with that.' "They want him to rest his brain as much as possible until then and not think about work.
"If he does that doctors are confident he'll be able to appear on the show," Wilman said.
The sooner the better, we say.
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