Freddie Flintoff has said that “part of me wishes I had been killed” in his terrifying Top Gear crash after making a split-second decision that saved his life.
The 46-year-old sportsman was involved in a near-fatal incident that left him with significant facial injuries and broken ribs while filming the now-suspended BBC motoring show in December 2022.
Britain’s most renowned cricketer admitted he initially thought he “was dead” after a Morgan Super 3 three-wheeled sports car flipped over on the Top Gear track at Surrey’s Dunsfold Park Aerodrome – and, in a new Disney+ documentary, he made the shock claim that “it would have been so much easier” if he had died.
“After the accident, I didn’t think I had it in me to get through,” the sportsman said in Flintoff. “This sounds awful: part of me wishes I had been killed. Part of me thinks, ‘I wish I had died.’
“I didn’t want to kill myself – don’t mistake the two things – but I was thinking: “This would have been so much easier.”‘
Flintoff recounted the precise moment of the crash and said that his cricket instincts, which kicked in during the life-and-death moment, prevented the outcome from being fatal.
“It was a three-wheeler, [with] a reinforced windscreen, so I’m exposed. Probably doing about 40-45 [miles per hour]. The wheel came off at the front. It’s a funny thing rolling a car because it’s a point of no return and everything slows down,” he explained.
“It’s so weird. As it started going over, I looked at the ground and I knew that if I went on the side, I’d break my neck. If I hit my temple, I’m dead. The best chance is [to] go face down.”
Flintoff continued: “I remember hitting [my jaw] but then I got dragged out. The car went over, then I went over the back of the car and then [I] was pulled facedown on the runway about 50 meters underneath the car.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
“Then it hit the grass and flipped back,” the sportsman continued. “I thought I was dead because I was conscious but I couldn’t see anything. I was thinking, ‘Is that it?’ Black for the rest of my days.
“But I had a hat over my eyes. So I pulled my hat up and I thought, ‘No I’m not, I’m alive. It’s the Top Gear track. This is not heaven’,” he recalled.
Flintoff added: “I looked down and the blood just started coming down and my biggest fear was I didn’t think I had a face. I thought my face had come off. I was frightened to death.”
The cricket star sat in agony for 40 minutes while he waited for an ambulance to reach the site of the crash in Surrey and take him to the major trauma unit at St George’s hospital in London.
Meanwhile, the cricketer’s wife, Rachael Wools – who he married in March 2005 – rushed to London despite not knowing the extent of her husband’s injuries or which hospital he’d been taken to.
“When I did see him I walked in the room, he was in the bed… his eyes. I’ve never seen someone so scared in his eyes,” Wools said.
“He was looking at me to know how bad he was so I totally pulled myself together and I just didn’t cry. I just said ‘It’s fine, you’re going to be OK. I can’t believe how amazing you look.’”
“Before we got home, I did call the kids and said to them you have to be as strong as you’ve ever been. Your dad does look different at the moment. It’s going to get better but I don’t want you to look shocked and horrified because that’s going to knock him.
“That was hard. Andrew doesn’t know I did that,” she admitted.
Flintoff received £9m in compensation as a result of his injuries. The crash led the BBC to suspend Top Gear production for the “foreseeable future”, deeming it inappropriate to continue.
Elsewhere in the documentary, the sportsman revealed he didn’t leave the house for over half a year following his accident and still suffers with anxiety over leaving his home years later.
When Flintoff returned to screens last year with a BBC series titled Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour, he revealed that he also still suffers with nightmares and flashbacks.
“It’s been so hard to cope,” he said. “But I’m thinking if I don’t do something, I’ll never go. I’ve got to get on with it.”
Speaking about his “life-altering” injuries in Flintoff , the cricketer said: “I’m not saying I’m embracing them, but I’m not trying to hide my scars.”
He added: “It’s almost like a reset. I’m trying to find out what I am now. I’ve always seemed to be able to flick a switch, I’ve got to find that switch again.”
Flintoff is available to stream on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland now.
