Andrew Flintoff has relived the horror of his life-changing car crash while filming the Top Gear TV show, admitting his lowest moments left him wishing he’d died.
The former England cricket star suffered a serious accident while filming the popular BBC program in 2022, enduring major facial injuries.
The incident took place on at Top Gear‘s test track at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome when the open-topped Morgan Super 3 Flintoff was driving flipped and slid, dragging him face down along the track.
Flintoff speaks about the incident in depth for the first time in a new Disney+ documentary Flintoff, which premieres on Friday, offering an unflinching account of the incident.
The film contains still images from the scene of the accident and some graphic shots of his wounds, but Flintoff’s account is even more harrowing.
At one stage, he admits: “After the accident I didn’t think I had it in me to get through. This sounds awful … part of me wishes I’d been killed. Part of me thinks, I wish I’d died.
“I didn’t want to kill myself … I wouldn’t mistake the two things. I was not wishing, I was just thinking, ‘this would have been so much easier’,” Flintoff says.
“Now I try to take the attitude that the sun will come up tomorrow and my kids will still give me a hug. I’m probably in a better place now.”
Flintoff was dragged beneath the open-top sports car. Photo: Disney +
The documentary, made by director John Dower, includes contributions from former teammates Michael Vaughan, Steve Harmison and Rob Key as well as family members and show business friends James Corden and Jack Whitehall.
There is also an appearance by his surgeon Jahrad Haq, who describes Flintoff’s injuries as one of the five worst he has come across in 20 years and likes the reconstruction process to a jigsaw with missing pieces.
Haq said the injuries were “very complex” – a mixture of hard and soft tissue injuries, broken teeth, lost teeth and elements of the upper jaw bone that were also fractured and displaced.
“[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 reveals he demanded to see footage of the crash and talks at length about the terror he felt in the moment.
“I remember my head got hit, I got dragged out. I went over the back of the car and it pulled my face down on the runway, about 50 metres, underneath the car,” he said.
“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 BBC “rested” Top Gear for the foreseeable future in 2023 after reaching a financial settlement with Flintoff, an agreement reportedly worth around £9 million ($19 million).
Top Gear was dropped by the BBC after Flintoff’s the crash. Photo: BBC
The 47-year-old appears resentful about the entertainment culture he was involved in, likening it to his own injury-ravaged playing career.
“Everybody wants more. Everybody want to dig that bit deeper,” he said.
“I learned this in sport as well. All the injuries, all the injections, all the times I got sent out on a cricket field and treated like a piece of meat. That’s TV and sport. It’s quite similar, you’re just a commodity. You’re a piece of meat.”
The documentary ends with its subject back involved in the sport that made his name, as head coach of England Lions and Northern Superchargers, and back in the television studio in a reboot of darts show Bullseye.
He appears optimistic about the future, despite regular flashbacks to the accident, and states: “I don’t think I’m ever going to be better … just different now. I’m getting there slowly.”
Wife Rachael later concludes: “I do think cricket saved him. It gave him a reason for being again.”
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