Richard Hammond became a household name on Top Gear in the early 2000s (Image: BBC )
confessed that the is living with a health condition following his horrific 320mph car crash in 2006.
The 55-year-old was filming a stunt for the show at York’s Elvington airfield when one of the tyres blew on the Vampire jet car that caused the vehicle to spin out of control.
The horrific accident left the presenter in a coma suffering from a frontal love brain injury. Since the accident, the host as spoken about his fear of being diagnosed with onset dementia.
But his horrific accident didn’t just impact the presenter. Looking back on the incident, he admitted he felt “a little hurt” after his daughter Izzy was “scared” of getting in a car with him.
Now, Richard has said that he has been suffering from “lost key syndrome” over the past 18 years. By “lost key syndrome”, the father-of-two likely means dysexecutive syndrome, which is the dysregulation of executive functions strictly associated with frontal love damage, according to the .
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The TV presenter was involved in a horrific crash on the show in 2006 (Image: BBC)
Explaining the condition, the TV presenter told : “I think anybody who’s suffered a brain injury will probably agree that it never leaves you in the sense that there’s always a little bit of you [confused] if you lose your car keys or you forget something.
“Mine was a frontal love injury, which would explain that. I’m left thinking, ‘Oh no. Is that because of the brain injury? Or is it because I’m now 54? Is it just because I’ve lost my keys?
“The doctors actually call it ‘lost key syndrome’ and it goes on and on.” However, Richard said he has “filed” the condition “amongst the things that have gone into making me into who I am now.”
He joked: “I’m still that irritating bloke from Birmingham, but that’s another one of the experiences that had turned me into the version of who I am today.”
Richard previously shared on the that he worried about his memory because its “not brilliant” after the crash.
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His ex-wife Mindy helped him recover from his injuries (Image: PA)
He confessed: “I have to write things down and work hard to remember them sometimes. It might be the age, it might be the onset of something else, I worry about that.
“I do, I do. I should probably have a look and find out, because I do.” Richard also said the accident saw him come “remarkably close to death” and left him suffering from depression, while he also admitted he had “no recollection” of the incident due to the frontal lobe bleed.
But the broadcaster’s accidents didn’t end there. Five years ago, Richard was airlifted to hospital in Switzerland after a second crash, this time while filming for Amazon’s The Grand Tour.
Recalling the accident, he said: “It’s not surprising that we don’t want to face it. I do practice a bit of mindfulness and as you get older, talking about it makes it easier.
“You don’t have to imagine a world without you in it because you won’t be in it. I had very bad post-traumatic amnesia for weeks. Like a one-minute memory. Mindy, my wife, said I was the nicest I had ever been. Lovely apparently.
“I was perfectly happy reading the same newspaper every single day several times a day until Mindy took it away because she was sick of seeing me read it.”
He went on: “If someone is in that confused state for whatever reason, if they’re happy, they are happy. All you’ve got to do is cope to support them in that. It doesn’t matter if they can’t remember who you are. And I was.”
Last year, it was reported The Grand Tour would be wrapping up in 2026 following a final special from their travels in Zimbabwe.