Top Gear star Richard Hammond thanks emergency crews 20 years on from crash

Former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has thanked emergency services for their help on the 20th anniversary of the crash in which he was nearly killed.

Hammond was seriously injured in September 2006 when the 320mph (515km/h) jet-powered Vampire dragster he was driving veered off the track at Elvington airfield, near York, during filming for the BBC show.

In an Instagram post, Hammond said he wanted to thank the members of the staff who rescued him and supported him following the accident "from the bottom of my heart".

In the post, he spoke of the events of that day and said he would be "forever grateful" to all those who helped him in the aftermath of the crash.

He wrote: "Twenty years ago today, I came to an abrupt stop upside down in a Yorkshire field, convinced I was about to die."

He said he recalled having pulled the lever to release the car's parachute before trying to steer it away from disaster, "but disaster was, it seemed, my fate".

"Having done everything I could to avert it, I gave myself over to that fate," he said.