Heartbreaking phone call Freddie Flintoff’s wife made after near-fatal Top Gear crash

Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff’s wife Rachael made a heartbreaking request to their children before they saw him for the first time after his horror car crash.

The England cricketer-turned-TV-presenter, 47, was involved in a near-fatal crash while filming for Top Gear in 2022.

The father-of-four was airlifted to hospital after suffering serious facial injuries and broken ribs.

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His wife rushed to the hospital after she heard about the incident at the Dunsfold test track, she revealed in a new documentary about the incident per The Mirror.

“When I did see him, I walked in the room and he was just in the bed, he was bandaged up,” she recalled in the Disney+ documentary.

“Like his eyes… I’ve never seen someone so scared in their eyes. And he just stared at me, and I just think he was looking at me to know how bad he was.”

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Rachael explained that she “totally pulled [herself] together”.

“I just didn’t cry. I didn’t, I just said, ‘It’s fine. You’re gonna be OK. I can’t believe how amazing you look’,” she said, revealing she was cautious not to add to Flintoff’s concern.

Then, before their children visited their dad for the first time, she gave them a phone call with a gut-wrenching warning.

“You’ve just got to be as strong as you’ve ever been,” she recalled telling three of their children, who were teenagers at the time.

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“Your dad does look different at the moment. It’s gonna get better but I don’t want you to look shocked and horrified because that’s gonna knock him”.

Rachael revealed that warning her kids about their dad’s appearance “was hard” and he had no idea it was one she made.

“But Andy doesn’t know I’ve ever done that,” she added.

With help from surgeons and a long road to recovery, Freddie made it out the other side.

“I was so grateful to all those people,” Rachael said of her husband’s emergency responders and medical team.

“I still had a husband, the kids still had their dad.” 

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Following his crash, the BBC confirmed Top Gear would be taken off air indefinitely and since recovering Freddie has returned to his cricketing roots as a coach.

Rachael spoke of his return to the sport in the documentary sharing, “it’s like back where he belongs”.

“For a girl who knew nothing about cricket, or very little about cricket, it’s definitely become a big part of my life and when Andrew needed it most, cricket was there for him,” she continued.

“I mean, it sounds a bit weird saying, a bit over the top to say, but I do think cricket saved him. It gave him a reason for being again.”

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