{"id":47436,"date":"2025-04-24T19:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T19:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/47436\/"},"modified":"2025-04-24T19:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T19:51:14","slug":"heartbreaking-andrew-flintoffs-ex-teammate-couldnt-stop-crying-after-seeing-facial-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/47436\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Heartbreaking’ – Andrew Flintoff’s ex-teammate couldn’t stop crying after seeing facial injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Harmison says he broke down in tears after receiving images of Andrew Flintoff\u2019s facial injuries from his near-fatal car crash.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Flintoff required surgery after his horrifying crash<\/a> whilst filming BBC Show Top Gear<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"England<\/a><\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

England cricket legend Flintoff suffered severe facial injuries during the crash in 2022Credit: Instagram<\/p>\n

The 2005 Ashes hero saw the Morgan Super 3 three-wheeled sports car he was driving flip over, dragging the star across tarmac at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.<\/p>\n

Flintoff<\/a> was left with life-changing facial injuries, many of which will be shown in a new documentary by Disney+, available to watch on Friday.<\/p>\n

Harmison, who shares a close relationship with Flintoff dating back to their England days, lifted the lid on the difficulties his former teammate endured in the months following the horror crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t come out of the house for the best part of seven months,\u201d the former fast bowler told talkSPORT.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was answering his phone and when you know Andrew you know that when he\u2019s answering his phone, there\u2019s nothing else going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a nightmare because when you send him a message you usually get an answer three weeks later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flintoff admits that part of him wished he had been killed in the crash due to the fear of losing his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the accident, I didn\u2019t think I had it in me to get through. This sounds awful: part of me wishes I had been killed, part of me thinks, \u2018I wish I had died\u2019,\u201d Flintoff says in the documentary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to kill myself, don\u2019t mistake the two things, but I was thinking, \u2018this would have been so much easier\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest fear was I didn’t think I had a face. I thought my face had come off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Flintoff<\/a><\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

Flintoff suffered the serves facial injuries in a crash whilst filming BBC’s Top GearCredit: Instagram\"Harmison<\/a><\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

Harmison spoke of his sadness after Flintoff’s accidentCredit: talkSPORT\"Harmison<\/a><\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

Harmison and Flintoff are long-time friends and former England teammates<\/p>\n

Harmison, who features in the programme, admits hearing Flintoff\u2019s brutal words were tough to hear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he said what he said there, that was heartbreaking. It\u2019s heartbreaking for me who has gone through so much with him, Harmison added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI first met Andrew in 1996. We both retired from England in the same game in 2009 and at the time we shared a room together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a difficult time for him and for Rachel and the kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew was always image conscious,\u201d he added. \u201cI saw some of the pictures before he went into surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he sent them to me, I didn\u2019t stop crying for a long, long time.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

The cricket legend made a return to sport in 2024 as coach of England LionsCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s lucky to be still with us. He\u2019s lucky he\u2019s been patched up and they’ve done a wonderful job and his confidence is back and it\u2019s great to see him back in cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oral and maxillofacial surgeon Mr Jahrad Haq was tasked with operating on Flintoff shortly after the star was airlifted to St George\u2019s Hospital in Tooting.<\/p>\n

And what he found upon arriving at the hospital was what he described as among the worst facial traumas he has encountered in his 20-year career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was on call that day and received a phone call from the A and E consultant. A lot of the injuries we have are managed at a more junior level before escalating to the consultant, so I knew something was up,\u201d said Mr Haq.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis injuries overall, for the past 20 years of seeing maxillo-facial trauma, I’d probably put in the top five.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a mixture of hard tissue and soft tissue injuries, broken teeth, lost teeth, elements of the upper jaw bone that were also fractured and displaced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Flintoff watches on as 16-year-old son belts century for England Lions against Australia<\/p>\n

Mr Haq continued: \u201cHis soft tissue injuries were very complex. It’s very unusual that you lose soft tissue, that you lose skin, and he’d lost a really significant portion of his upper lip, the skin and some of the underlying muscle and also his lower lip.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese wounds were never going to be clean wounds. He’s scraped his face along the tarmac. There’s going to be grit, dirt, and the initial surgery took about five hours.<\/p>\n

‘\u201dYou\u2019ve just got to get the anatomy back to how it was in the first place. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, and almost always all the pieces are there. In Andrew’s case, they weren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Harmison says he broke down in tears after receiving images of Andrew Flintoff\u2019s facial injuries from his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[25921,192,1406,79,25922,25404,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-47436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-andrew-flintoff","9":"tag-bbc","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-steve-harmison","13":"tag-top-gear","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114394686118780669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}