Freddie Flintoff is back hosting the hit ITV show Bullseye, three years on from his harrowing Top Gear accident
Freddie Flintoff and Bullseye grace our screens once again this Sunday. The iconic England cricketer returns to the studio three years after his life-changing Top Gear crash.
The Lancashire-born former all-rounder transitioned seamlessly into TV after retirement and after a successful trial run last Christmas, he’ll front the fan favourite darts game show for a whole series beginning on Sunday at 8pm.
One of Flintoff’s last roles was as a presenter on Top Gear, a position he assumed in 2019. Just three years after he first arrived on the BBC staple, an accident during filming at Surrey’s Dunsfold Park Aerodrome would leave Flintoff with life-altering injuries and permanent facial scarring.
In December 2022, while filming for Top Gear, which has been put on an indefinite hiatus by the BBC following this incident, Flintoff flipped over in a Morgan Super 3 vehicle.
This particular car was an open-top model and so when he flipped at the aerodrome’s first bend, his face was scraped along the tarmac. He was not wearing a crash helmet and suffered from broken ribs as well as serious facial injuries.
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In an eponymous documentary about the incident on Disney+, the surgeon who dealt with Flintoff’s injuries revealed that his wounds were challenging to deal with and were filled with grit and dirt.
He also shared that Flintoff had suffered soft and hard tissue injuries, broken and lost teeth and a fractured upper jawbone. The former cricket star underwent a single reconstructive operation that lasted around five hours.
Speaking in this documentary, the 47-year-old detailed exactly what he was thinking during the crash. Flintoff said: “It was a three-wheeler, and it had a reinforced windscreen, so I’m exposed.
“Probably doing about 40-45 [miles per hour]. The wheel came up at the front. It’s a funny thing rolling a car because it’s a point of no return and everything slows down.
“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 go face down.
“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 was pulled facedown on the runway about 50 meters underneath the car.
“Then it hit the grass and flipped back. 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 alive. It’s the Top Gear track.’
“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.”
Flintoff even heartbreakingly admitted that part of him wishes he had died during the ordeal. He added: “After the accident, I didn’t think I had it in me to get through.
“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.'”
Source: Mirror
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