Top Gear has launched a probe after its presenter Freddie Flintoff was injured in a car crash.
The 45-year-old had been filming a segment for the BBC motoring show when he was involved in an accident on Tuesday morning.
The former England cricket captain was rushed to hospital after sustaining injuries at the show’s test track at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.
‘Freddie was injured in an accident at the Top Gear test track this morning – with crew medics attending the scene immediately,’ a spokesperson said at the time.
‘He has been taken to hospital for further treatment and we will confirm more details in due course.’
Following the terrifying incident, Flintoff’s son Corey, 16, shared an update on his father, saying he was ‘lucky to be alive.’
‘It was a pretty nasty crash. It is shocking. We are all shocked but just hope he’s going to be OK,’ he told the Mail Online.
The BBC has also launched a probe into the accident and stressed that ‘all health and safety procedures’ were followed ahead of Flintoff’s injury and confirmed the incident is being ‘fully investigated.’
A spokesman for the show said: ‘Our primary concern is and has been for the welfare of Freddie – as well as the Top Gear team.
‘All health and safety procedures were followed on site and the incident is now being fully investigated, in line with standard policy and practice.’
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions, said it was ‘aware’ of the incident and ‘making inquiries.’
It is procedure for the BBC to report the incident to the HSE and for inquiries to be made.
Flintoff, who was appointed England cricket captain twice, first in 2006 and 2007, retired from the international stage in 2010, briefly returning to play for Lancashire four years later.
Following his successful sporting career he became a familiar face on television, joining various reality and panel shows and appearing as the face of supermarket brand Morrisons.
In 2010 he became a team captain on Sky’s A League Of Their Own, hosted by James Corden before being crowned king of the jungle in the first series of the Australian version of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! in 2015.
He was announced in October 2018, ahead of the show’s 27th series, as a new host of Top Gear alongside Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris.
Tuesday’s accident is not the first faced by Flintoff since he began working on the programme.
In February 2019 the presenter was involved in a minor incident when he crashed into a market stall in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
In September of the same year he crashed again while driving a three-wheel vehicle at a reported speed of 124mph during filming for Top Gear at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire, but walked away from the incident unharmed.
Former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was involved in a serious crash at the same airfield in 2006, leaving him in a coma.
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