NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE
Richard Hammond’s video account of what he remembers from his life-altering near-death experience is now approaching 2 million views on YouTube.
The video has sparked extensive commentary and coverage since it was uploaded on November 19, 2022.
For the production team who filmed Hammond telling his story from a mountainside in the Lake District, the project came as a moving and unexpected collaboration.
Hammond invited us to join him at Buttermere to create a behind-the-scenes video for his car show, Richard Hammond’s Workshop. Arriving in the Lake District, the crew and team wanted to learn more about why this location is so important to Hammond — a setting he calls his favourite place in the world.
Aside from how Buttermere allows the media presenter to escape the public eye, the environment holds significant personal meaning. To expound on this, Hammond brought the team on a hike to a specific tree on the mountainside high above the lake.
AWFUL WEATHER
DriveTribe’s Head of Operations Nicholas Fox shares, “The weather was not very kind to us. There was a lot of wind and intermittent rain showers throughout the day. Once it eased up enough, we started filming. I was capturing sound while Turner and Tom were operating cameras. Because of the wind and rain, they couldn’t actually hear what Richard was saying. I think it was probably for the best. As I was listening, I was trying to keep myself dry from the rain and my eyes dry from the story!”
While much has been written about the Richard Hammond accident, Hammond himself has shared only spare details of what he experienced during his medically induced two-week coma in 2006.
In the newly released video, he recounts how, lying unconscious in a hospital bed in Leeds, his mind took him to this specific spot on the mountainside.
Aside from how Buttermere allows the media presenter to escape the public eye, the environment holds significant personal meaning. To expound on this, Hammond brought the team on a hike to a specific tree on the mountainside high above the lake.
In Hammond’s own words,
“I didn’t really come up to this hill and walk around this tree, but my mind did…And I’ve taken huge solace from that ever since because that was my last thought, certainly at the time.”
“And my last thought took me somewhere I love. And somewhere I’m happy. And that last thought, if I had shut down and stopped, would have echoed, as far as I was concerned, for all of eternity, and I’ve found immense comfort from it ever since.”
Telling the Story
While the public has marvelled over the Richard Hammond crash and Hammond’s survival for years, these new details have struck a chord beyond what anybody anticipated.
The video has now been viewed over 6 million times across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok and has been picked up by news publications across the globe.
Fox states, “We film hundreds of videos every year in varying capacities. I don’t think I have ever felt more compelled than I did on that day to thank someone for sharing such a story. It was so personal and brave to share that with the world. But I believe him doing so has brought a huge amount of comfort to many, many people.”