Former Top Gear star James May has been rushed to hospital after a death-defying stunt went horribly wrong.
The 59-year-old UK TV presenter was filming for his popular Amazon Prime Video series The Grand Tour when he crashed his car into a wall at 120km/h, suffering a broken rib, The Sun reports.
May and his co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson, 62, and Richard Hammond, 52, had been filming a dangerous drag-style race when the accident unfolded.
The challenge involved the stars individually steering speed rally cars through a tunnel towards a rock wall at a Norwegian naval base.
The tunnel’s lights only came on as the cars sped past, giving all three men just seconds to react as they ran out of time before hitting the wall.
May, who is ironically nicknamed ‘Captain Slow’ by his co-stars, hit the brakes too late and crashed into the wall.
He was helped out of his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 by paramedics, before being taken to hospital for a brain scan and X-rays. He was reportedly given the all-clear a short time later.
May had to abandon filming while Clarkson and Hammond continued on their Arctic Circle trip without him.
May’s accident happened at the decommissioned Olavsvern naval base near the city of Tromso, as part of a new grand-tour special which will be released later this year.
A television source told The Sun, “It looked extremely worrying at first. Jeremy and Richard were concerned about their mate and the paramedics swooped in quickly.
“As ever on a shoot of this scale, medical staff are waiting in the wings in case — as they did here — things go horribly wrong.
“James smashed his head quite hard in the impact, and was bloodied by it. He was complaining about pain in his back and neck from him. He was only able to join them once given the all-clear a day or so later.”
The shock incident came after Hammond cheated death in a horror accident in 2006, when he was traveling at 460km/h in a jet-powered car while filming for the BBC’s hit show, topgear.
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
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