Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff has mirrored on how he believes the cricketing instincts that made him one of many most interesting gamers on the planet additionally helped save his life.
The previous England captain cheated loss of life in a catastrophic accident whereas filming for the hit TV present Prime Gear in 2022.
In an extract from his new e-book, Coming House: The moments that Made Me, the good all-rounder says he leaned on the decision-making that served him nicely dealing with among the world’s quickest bowlers when his automobile flipped over at a terrifying velocity at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey.
‘The identical split-second determination making got here into play throughout the crash I went by whereas filming an episode of Prime Gear in 2022,’ he tells the Sunday Instances.
‘Abruptly the automobile was rolling and the world was all slow-motion chaos. I knew, one way or the other, precisely what was coming. I knew the choices: If I caught my arm out, I’d lose it. If I didn’t brace, I’d snap my neck. So I made the decision. I shut my eyes and flung up my left arm, with the pondering being that as a right-hander, I used to be ready to lose my left.
‘The automobile dragged me beneath for 50 metres, face skidding, physique flipping. Minus two levels, busted face, however alive — as a result of in that prompt, my thoughts, honed on cricket’s calls for, made the appropriate name. A split-second determination. One which saved my life, and altered it.’
England cricket legend Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff has mirrored on how he believes the cricketing instincts that made him one of many most interesting gamers on the planet additionally helped save his life
Flintoff performed an integral position in England’s historic Ashes sequence towards Australia in 2005
‘Half my face is totally different now. However I’m not lifeless. I’m nonetheless right here. Nonetheless standing’: The ex-England star went by main facial surgical procedure after the crash – however owes his life to his cricket instincts
Flintoff goes on to say that getting again concerned within the sport he loves ‘helped to convey me again’. He talks about his involvement within the programme Subject of goals, the place he takes cricket into much less privileged elements of the UK and past.
Filming was curtailed after the accident, and Flintoff provides: ‘My first time again on digital camera after the accident was January 2024 in Preston. Me telling the lads we had been going to India once more. I didn’t suppose they’d anticipated me to show up — a part of me didn’t count on it both — however I did.
‘And the response… nicely, they had been simply lads. Sensible in their very own manner. Some had been clearly relieved I’d made it. Others didn’t fairly know what to say. However there was a heat there, that unstated factor you get when individuals have been by one thing collectively.
‘There was sooner or later particularly (in India) — we visited this orphanage. Youngsters from the slums, some born on the road, no mother and father, simply survival from day one. They’d been given an opportunity — a correct training, a protected place — and you can see it of their eyes, the best way they held themselves. They knew what it meant. They weren’t losing a second. That hit me laborious. Hit all of us, actually.
‘As a result of the lads I introduced out — they’d had their struggles, yeah. However they’d additionally had probabilities. Individuals who cared. Techniques, nevertheless flawed. Seeing these children within the orphanage, it was like a jolt. A reminder. In case you get a possibility, seize it with each fingers. And the lads took that on. You could possibly see it shift one thing in them.
‘And for me? It was the identical. I’d been by one thing, little doubt. Half my face is totally different now. However I’m not lifeless. I’m nonetheless right here. Nonetheless standing.’
