NEW: Rudy Giuliani Makes First Appearance After Near-Death Car Accident

Bruised and battered, Rudy Giuliani has emerged from his hospital stay to share the harrowing details about his serious car crash in New Hampshire over the Labor Day weekend.

Giuliani, 81, gave his first interview since walking away from the wreck with a fractured vertebrae in his neck and an upper body brace keeping him stiff. He joked that the harness-like contraption is a necessity after he was “injured pretty badly” in the crash.

A number of other injuries to Giuliani include lacerations to his upper body and an injured left arm and lower leg.

“I like this outfit. This may become permanent,” the former New York City mayor kidded while speaking with America’s Mayor Live show co-host Ted Goodman.

“It is similar to football equipment, if you’ve played hockey or football or one of those sports,” Goodman responded.

Giuliani pulled out his phone and played a song from the 2000 movie “Gladiator.”

“I was thinking more like a gladiator, you know?” he laughed.

As he tells it, both Giuliani and Goodman were traveling through New Hampshire when they were flagged down by a woman on the side of the road who claimed she was in trouble. Goodman, who was driving, pulled their car over to “evaluate her” and call the local police.

“I looked at her very, very carefully, and professional instincts kicked in. So you watch every single thing about her,” Giuliani recalled.

Goodman said that the woman claimed she had been “attacked” and that Giuliani had invited her to come sit in their car.

“The mayor did invite her in the car. I didn’t like that… Come on, this is Mayor Rudy Giuliani,” he said.

After getting in touch with the police, Giuliani said he and Goodman were shocked to learn that officers believed it was the woman who may have instigated a violent encounter earlier in the day.

As she was being loaded into an ambulance, Giuliani said the police had given him and Goodman the OK to leave the scene. That’s when their car was rear-ended at high speed by another vehicle.

Officers witnessed the crash unfold right before their eyes and rushed to Giuliani’s aid.

“The whiplash of my body was brutal,” he said. “The pain was excruciating.”

No charges have yet been filed against the driver, 19-year-old Lauren Kemp from Concord.

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Giuliani said he felt “felt very sorry for her” and hoped that the police would not charge her as a result of the traffic accident.

“I don’t think she’s a bad actor here at all,” he insisted.

“If you say she was driving fast, everybody in New Hampshire drives fast. I’m sorry. She wasn’t driving any faster than anybody else. Was she driving too fast? Probably. But I’m not gonna hold that against her. How could she know?” he continued, per the Daily Mail.

“I would tell her as a lawyer, don’t make a statement about this… I would be very upset if they charged her, and I would stop it. I would do everything I could. I wouldn’t even testify against her. I just think the woman made a mistake.”

Giuliani added: “I’ve got a permanent– not a permanent, but one that has to be resolved over a period of time injury. In a hospital for a couple of days. But we’re out, we’re doing our show, and God was very, very good to us.”