FLINTOFF TELLS OF My
Genuinely, I should not be here.. I need to stop crying every 2 minutes
FREDDIE Flintoff has revealed the nightmares and horrific flashbacks he suffered after his Top Gear crash, admitting he couldn’t leave home for months.
The former cricket star had been driving a three-wheel Morgan Super 3 sports car when it flipped over, leaving him with broken ribs and facial injuries in December 2022.
A new documentary shows he also suffered emotional scars and anxiety which left him crying every two minutes, as he says: “Genuinely, I should not be here.”
In the new series of the BBC’S Field of Dreams, Freddie is seen in videos he filmed at home when his facial injuries were at their worst.
Speaking a week-and-a-half after the accident at a Surrey track, he says: “This is going to be a long road back. I have only just started and I am struggling already.
“I need help. I really am not the best at asking for it... I need to stop crying every two minutes.”
At the time, he had been due to be preparing young cricketers from his Lancashire hometown of Preston for a tour of India just three months later.
Close to tears, Freddie adds: “I am looking forward to seeing the lads and being around them, I really am. This India trip is going to be for me as much as them now.
“Determined, I really want to go.”
RECOVERY
The tour ended up being delayed and the BBC axed Top Gear.
Freddie’s friend and cricket coach Kyle Hogg has to break the news to the boys that they need to “push back” the tour and he adds: “I’ve seen him briefly a couple of times. He has had a tough few weeks.
“Fred’s accident is really bad.
He’s gonna need a lot of recovery time. He’s pretty lucky he managed to get through it alive.”
Seven months later, Freddie is seen at home – which he barely left – telling
Kyle: “I wanted to shake it off and say
‘here I am, I’m all right’.
“But it’s not been a case of that, it’s been a lot harder than I thought. As much as I wanted to go out and do things, I have just not been able to.”
He adds: “When I was in hospital, I was thinking ‘right, it’s March I was aiming towards March’ and then September I was aiming towards that. It’s always been a little bit unachievable.
“I think about it all the time [going to India], about how good it’ll be. I rewind and I am thinking ‘I am not leaving the house either’. We have got to get on a plane and be away for two-and-a-half weeks.
“But some of those lads have had a tough life, you’ve got to put it into perspective. I feel guilty.
“I can’t do that. I don’t want to sit here and feel sorry for myself. I don’t want sympathy but it’s going from being in here for seven months, really, and then going to India for two-and-a-half weeks.
“Everywhere I go at the minute I have got a full face mask and glasses. I can’t do that. I struggle with anxiety, I have nightmares, I have flashbacks. It has been so hard to cope with.
“But I’m thinking, if I don’t do something I’ll never do owt. I’ve got to get on with it.”
Freddie, 46, eventually meets the boys again in Preston, around 12 months after his accident. Nine of them went to India earlier this year.
Just before the tour, Freddie is still showing some nerves.
He said: “We are going somewhere which is incredible. I am trying to focus on the good stuff that is gonna happen. And as much as I stand there and tell the lads about how great it is, there’s a bit of nervousness from my point of view.
“I found myself over years being in situations which I’m never quite sure I could get through. That’s how I’m feeling in a small way about