Andrew Flintoff has described his return to cricket as a coach over the past 18 months as “the one thing that saved me” as he struggled to come to terms with the mental and physical scars caused in acar accident during filmingfor the BBC’s Top Gear in December 2022.
Flintoff talks for the first time about the accident and its aftermath in a Disney+ documentary to be released on Friday. “After the accident I didn’t think I had it in me to get through,” he says.
“This sounds awful: part of me thinks I should have been killed. Part of me thinks I wish I had died. I didn’t want to kill myself, I won’t mistake the two things. I wasn’t wishing, I was thinking: that would have been so much easier. Now I try to take the attitude, you know what, the sun will come up tomorrow, and my kids will still give me a hug. I feel in a better place now.”
For several months after the accident Flintoffrefused to leave his houseexcept for medical appointments. He had taken little involvement in cricket since his retirement in 2010 and move into TV presenting, but it was his sport which eventually coaxed him from seclusion, initially to run a few sessions for the England men’s team in 2023 and then with formal appointments in 2024as coach of England Lions, a B-team largely composed of emerging players, and of theHundred side Northern Superchargers.
“If one thing’s come out of it which is positive it’s being back in cricket,” Flintoff said. “It’s probably the one thing that saved me. I’ve been welcomed back into that fold. It’s such a good place. I feel it’s safe. I have moments when I’m sat in a dressing room and I’m watching a game of cricket surrounded by cricketers and friends, and I’m able to forget.”
The 47-year-old sustained serious facial injuries when a three-wheeled, open-topped car overturned while he was driving it on a runway at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, Top Gear’s regular filming location. “I remember everything about it,” Flintoff says in the documentary.
“When I think about it now I’m back in that car. They were showing me how to get the car going sideways. And the wheel came off at the front. It’s a funny thing, rolling a car, because there’s a point of no return, and everything slows down. It’s so weird.
“I used to play cricket, and if you bat you get point four of a second to make your mind up where the ball’s going, what shot are you going to play, how are you going to move your feet. And as it started going over, I looked at the ground and I knew if I get hit on the side [of his head], I’m going to break my neck. If I get hit on the temple I’m dead. My best chance is go face down … My biggest fear [afterwards] was I didn’t think I had a face. I thought my face had come off. I was frightened to death.”
Earlier in the film he says of the accident: “I’m still arranging it in my mind. Still coming to terms with it. I still live it every day. Still in the car every night when I go to bed. And it’s so vivid. I’ve not slept the same since. It’s a movie in my head.”
After the accident Flintoff was airlifted to St George’s hospital in Tooting. The film features graphic images of injuries that Jahrad Haq, the surgeon who operated on him, describes as “very complex … In the past 20 years of seeing maxillofacial trauma, probably in the top five”.
In 2023 Flintoffreached a settlement with BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC that produced Top Gear, reportedly worth £9m. That November the corporation announced the programme had been cancelled. Flintoff had been co-presenting since 2019, alongside Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris, with great success: its last series had an average audience of 4.5 million viewers. However, Flintoff feels the presenters’ safety had been put at risk in the desperate attempt to improve ratings.
“Everyone wants more. Everybody wants that that thing that nobody’s seen before,” he said. “Everybody wants to dig that a little bit deeper. Everybody wants an exclusive. Everybody wants the biggest stunt. Like: ‘Let’s have that near-miss because that’ll get viewers.’ Everything’s about viewers. Always.
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“I should have been cleverer on this because I learned this in sport as well. With all the injuries and all the injections and all the times that I got sent out on a cricket field, just treated like a piece of meat. That’s TV and sport. I think that’s where it’s quite similar. You’re just a commodity. You’re just a piece of meat.”
The documentary features contributions from former colleagues in cricket and entertainment including James Corden, Jack Whitehall, Rob Key and Ricky Ponting, as well as his wife Rachael and medical personnel who treated him. It tells the story of his accident but also his remarkable sporting career, from the highs of Ashes victories in 2005 and 2009 to struggles with his weight and with alcohol, as well as his recent return to coaching.
“It’s such a good job. I don’t think I’ve smiled and laughed as much as this in a long time,” Flintoff says, during an interview filmed last year in the Caribbean during T20 World Cup. “I’ve got to remind myself sometimes that I’m not one of the lads, because you just lose yourself in it all. But at night, I do go back to my room on my own, and I’m left with my own thoughts and my own feelings, and they don’t seem to be changing.
“I still have my nightmares … I don’t think I’m ever going to be better. I’m just different now. It’s just, let’s find somewhere where you sit quite comfortably. And I’m getting there, slowly.”
In the UK and Ireland,Samaritanscan be contacted on freephone 116 123, or emailjo@samaritans.orgorjo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text theNational Suicide Prevention Lifelineon 988, chat on988lifeline.org, ortext HOMEto 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support serviceLifelineis 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found atbefrienders.org