Andrew Flintoff has said he “didn’t know if I had it in me to carry on” after his crash at the Top Gear test track.
The 47-year-old was speaking on Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams: Ultimate Test, the third series to be made in which the former England cricket captain attempts to build new teams from teenagers who have limited experience of the game.
In the first episode of the new BBC One series which launches on Sunday 7 September, Flintoff attempts to build his first team of girls in Blackpool, and one of the teenagers he invites to join them asks him: “How hard was it to leave your house again?” after the crash.
Flintoff replied: “It was, what – 18 months ago? And you know, I’ve suffered with things like depression in the past before, but this time was different. I didn’t know if I had it in me to carry on, not that I wanted to die or anything like that, I just didn’t know if I had it in me, and that took a while.
“The one thing, I think, getting quite deep here, but the one thing you just want to be is happy in yourself, and try and be accepting of yourself of what you are. It took me a long time to be like that, and then the crash put me back again, and now it’s like finding myself or finding the person I want to be.”
Flintoff was taken to hospital with facial and rib injuries following the crash at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, in December 2022.
At an earlier point in the episode, Flintoff tells another girl that he has “gone back to cricket” after the incident as it is “a bit safer”.
It comes after the show’s second series saw Flintoff speak about the incident for the first time on television, revealing he was “crying every two minutes”, and only left his home for medical appointments in the seven months following the crash.
In a Disney+ documentary named after him released earlier this year, Flintoff admitted that a part of him wished he had died after the crash. He said: “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’.
“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.”
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Following the incident, the BBC “rested” Top Gear for the foreseeable future in 2023 after reaching a financial settlement with Flintoff, an agreement reportedly worth around £9m.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org