BBC to show "Hamster's" high-speed crash

LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) Footage of television presenter Richard Hammond's high-speed smash in a jet-powered car that left him critically-injured will be shown for the first time today.

The ''Top Gear'' co-presenter said he thought he was going to die after he lost control of a Vampire Dragster at 288 mph and the car flipped over while he was filming a feature for the show on an RAF airfield near York last September.

Hammond, known as ''Hamster'' to his legion of fans, suffered brain damage and was in a coma but is expected to make a full recovery.

Today, the crash will be aired on the BBC programme and Hammond will discuss what happened with fellow presenter Jeremy Clarkson.

Last month Hammond told Jonathan Ross in his first TV interview that he had no memory of two weeks of his life after the incident.

''I was driving and then it was two weeks later and I was in Leeds (hospital),'' he said.

''Apparently I was awake on the way to the helicopter and I got a bit fighty, I wanted to do a piece to camera, but my eyes were pointing in different directions,'' he said of his trip by air ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary.

''Top Gear'' goes out on BBC Two at 8 p.m.

REUTERS RL HT1727