Richard Hammond's wife has spoken of the moment she learned she nearly lost her husband for the second time in just over a decade, threatening to take his "toys away" if he gets in another crash.

The 47-year-old TV presenter was in Switzerland filming for The Grand Tour last week when he lost control of a Rimac Concept One – a £2m ($2.5m) electric super car – causing it to flip multiple times down a hillside before bursting into flames.

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The car then exploded, but Hammond managed to clamber out of the vehicle seconds before the blast despite fracturing his knee in the crash.

Hammond is now safely recovering in hospital after extensive surgery, but his crash had wife Mindy Hammond fearing she would have to raise their two children alone.

"In the back of my mind – and [daughter] Izzy's too – were the memories of his last accident," she wrote in a column for the Sunday Express.

"I'm not a panicker, but I almost went to pieces this time.

"I didn't want to rant or get hysterical but my brain needed to keep itself occupied with something – anything – as long as it wasn't the reality of Richard's situation."

Jeremy Clarkson, the show's co-presenter alongside James May, labelled the crash the biggest and most frightening he had ever seen.

Pictures of the fireball emerged on social media shortly after the crash.

Hammond was previously involved in another life-threatening crash in 2006 while filming for BBC's Top Gear.

"Most of us are fortunate to escape looking death in the face," Mindy wrote. "Richard has done it twice – and that's two times too many."

She added Hammond was a "silly, silly boy" and that he will "have his toys taken off him" if he continues to be involved in scrapes.

"None of us in our little family dare consider what the outcome would have been if Richard hadn't scrambled his way out of that car last weekend," she said.

"We're just incredibly grateful he escaped with cuts, bruises and a broken knee."

Hammond
Richard Hammond speaking from his hospital bed