Richard Hammond fears memory loss a sign of more serious issue after 2006 crash
Richard Hammond has said he fears his worsening memory loss is the result of a more serious condition caused by his 2006 high-speed crash.
The TV presenter, 53, said he had been “too scared” to get checked by a professional for signs of conditions that might have such an effect, such as early onset dementia.
Hammond crashed a jet-powered dragster called Vampire at nearly 320mph while filming for Top Gear at the former RAF Elvington airbase near York.
Hammond told The Diary Of A CEO podcast: “I do worry about my memory because it’s not brilliant. My working memory is very large, my processing memory in the moment. So I can still read a page of script and deliver it. But my longer-term memory, not brilliant.
“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.”
Asked by host Steven Bartlett if he worried about that, he replied: “Yes, I do. I should probably have a look and find out. Probably should.”
Asked if he was scared to find out, he added: “Yes, because it was a bleed on the front. It could mean there is an increased risk. I don’t know. I need to find out. I’ve just been too scared to do it but I do need to. I need to do it.”
He added that he recently told a doctor during a medical for a production that he needed “to book myself in for one of those mid-life MOTs to see everything is OK”.
Hammond did not directly refer to early onset dementia but said he “probably needs an MRI scan”.
He added: “But at 53 your memory does start to get a bit – they call it lost key syndrome, the doctors did, when I first came home from brain injury.
“They have it with a lot of patients. They would lose their keys and go into an absolute flap, tail spin, panic.”
He said he was “quite forgetful” as a person “so I do drop the ball – I forget stuff, I forget keys”.
He added: “That’s just me, that’s not a function of something going wrong. It’s how I am.”