Freddie Flintoff relives Top Gear crash hell including split-second life-saving decision

Freddie Flintoff has recalled the split-second decision which he believes saved his life during the terrifying crash he suffered while filming for Top Gear. Flintoff sustained serious injuries in a 130mph crash in December 2022.

The former cricketer was driving a three-wheeled open-topped car at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey. The car flipped and slid, dragging him along the track, causing serious facial and rib injuries.

Flintoff has previously revealed in the Disney+ documentary about the accident and his recovery that he thought he had died. "I thought my face had come off,” he said. “I was frightened to death.”

Now, in an extract of ‘Coming Home: The Moments that Made Me’ in The Times, Flintoff has explained how his experience as an elite cricket player helped him during those terrifying moments. “The same split-second decision-making came into play during the crash I went through while filming an episode of Top Gear in 2022,” he wrote.

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“Suddenly the car was rolling and the world was all slow-motion chaos. I knew, somehow, exactly what was coming. I knew the options: If I stuck my arm out, I’d lose it. If I didn’t brace, I’d snap my neck. So I made the call. I shut my eyes and flung up my left arm, with the thinking being that as a right-hander, I was prepared to lose my left.

“The car dragged me underneath for 50 metres, face skidding, body flipping. Minus two degrees, busted face, but alive – because in that instant, my mind, honed on cricket’s demands, made the right call. A split-second decision. One that saved my life, and changed it.”

Flintoff was in “agony” while he waited for the air ambulance to arrive and take him to hospital. He had suffered serious injuries to his face, including broken and lost teeth and a fractured jaw, but he believes he made the right decision.

“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,” Flintoff explained in the documentary.

“And then I remember hitting [the ground] and my head got hit. 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.”

Flintoff spent a long time recovering from his physical injuries and the mental impact before making a lowkey return to public life as a coach with England in September 2023. Having worked as a presenter on Top Gear, starred in Sky gameshow A League Of Their Own and made documentary series Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams, he has now thrown himself back into cricket.