Former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff suffered a horrific car crash while filming for BBC’s Top Gear in 2022. The incident left him with significant facial and rib injuries when the three-wheeler he was driving rolled over. After the accident, Flintoff required surgery. Following the incident, BBC suspended the production of the show, with the former England also receiving 9 million pounds in compensation for the ordeal. Now, while speaking in a new Disney+ documentary, Flintoff said the experience was traumatic.
“I thought I was dead, because I was conscious but I couldn’t see anything,” he recalled. “I was thinking, is that it? Is that it? You know what I mean? Just black for the rest of my days? My hat came over my eyes – so I pulled my hat up and I thought, no I’m not [dead], I’m on the Top Gear track, this is not heaven.”
Flintoff was so afraid that he felt his ‘face had come off’. “I thought my face had come off. I was frightened to death.” The incident took place on December 13, 2022 at the Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey. Flintoff was driving an open-topped Morgan Super 3, accoring to a report in the BBC, when the vehicle flipped and slid.
“As it started going over, I looked at the ground and I knew, if I get hit here on the side [of the head] then I’ll break my neck, or if I get hit on the temple I’m dead. The best chance is to go face down. And then I remember hitting [the ground] and my head got hit,” he added.
“But then I got dragged out, and the car went over, and I went over the back of the car, and then [I got] pulled face down on the runway about 50m underneath the car. And then I hit the grass and then [it] flipped back.”
Surgeon Jahrad Haq, who treated Flintoff, said in the documentary hat the injuries were “very complex”.
He “lost a really significant portion of his upper lip – the skin and some of the underlying muscle – and also his lower lip,” he said.
Flintoff said he didn’t think he had it in him “to get through” the ordeal.
“This sounds awful. Part of me wishes I’d been killed. Part of me thinks I wish I’d died,” he added.
“I didn’t want to kill myself. I don’t want to mistake the two things. I was not wishing, but thinking, this would have been so much easier…
“Now I try to take the attitude, you know what, the sun will come up tomorrow, and then my kids will still give me a hug, and I’m probably in a better place now.”
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