<p class="article_body">The first pictures of the dramatic crash which nearly cost Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond his life have been published.</p><p class="article_body">Hammond had a miraculous escape when he crashed a jet-powered dragster at 288mph while filming a stunt for the programme in September.</p><p class="article_body">The photographs - featured in the new issue of Top Gear magazine - show a tyre bursting before the dragster skids and then flips over.</p><p class="article_body">Although Hammond has little recollection of the crash, he has tried to imagine what happened.</p><p class="article_body">He said: "I will have taken a few deep breaths on the start line as the engine roared and my thumb hovered over the afterburner switch.</p><p class="article_body">"Then I will have hit it and 10,000 horsepower will have hurled me towards the horizon and up to 280mph. The rest is, I'm afraid, history."</p><p class="article_body">Hammond suffered brain injuries when he crashed the Vampire jet car at Elvington airfield in York in September as he attempted to break the British land speed record.</p><p class="article_body">But the father of two left hospital just five weeks after the high-speed accident and is said to be making a full recovery.</p><p class="article_body">Video footage of the crash will be broadcast in the first episode of the new series of Top Gear on January 28, according to Top Gear magazine.</p>
