Chris Harris, the former host of Top Gear, reportedly discussed safety issues with the BBC and warned them that someone could die.
The BBC decided to put TV host and former England cricketer Freddie Flintoff on leave for the “foreseeable future” after he suffered severe injuries in an accident during filming at Surrey’s Dunsfold Aerodrome in December 2022.
Chris Harris recently spoke on The Joe Rogan Experience about the accident.
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Chris said: “I ran to the window, looked out, and he wasn’t moving.
“So I thought he was dead. I assumed he was, then he moved.”
He told the host: “The bit that I find really difficult is that in the aftermath of that accident, the show was put on hold.”
“Andrew had to recover from frankly awful injuries and has done so – profound injuries.”
“We all kept quiet. We said nothing, and I said nothing because I wanted to look after him. It wasn’t my story, was it?”
He confessed, “I lost my job immediately because they cancelled the show when my contract was up, so suddenly I haven’t got a job.”
“And I just sort of got my head down. But I had seen this coming.”
“There was a big inquiry, a lot of soul searching. The BBC is good at that.”
“But what was never spoken about was that three months before the accident, I’d gone to the BBC and said, ‘Unless you change something, someone’s going to die on this show.'”
Chris continued, “So I went to them, I went to the BBC, and I told them my concerns from what I’d seen as the most experienced driver on the show by a mile.”
“I said, ‘If we carry on, at the very least, we’re going to have a serious injury, [at] the very worst we have a fatality’.”
Chris discussed how he had asked to meet with the head of health and safety.
“What’s really killed me is that no one’s ever really acknowledged the fact that I called it beforehand.”
“I thought I’d done the right thing. I’m not very good at that. I normally just go with the flow, but I saw this coming.”
“I thought I did the right thing. I went to the BBC, and I found out really that no one had taken me very seriously.”
Last month, Freddie Flintoff opened up about the anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks he has suffered since his near-fatal Top Gear crash.
Speaking for the first time since the horrific accident two years ago, the cricketer-turned-presenter spoke about how he still feels compelled to leave social situations to burst into tears alone.
Freddie told fellow cricketer Kyle Hogg: “I find myself over the years in situations which I’m never quite sure I can get through, and that’s how I’m feeling in a small way about it.”
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“There’ll be times when I take myself off, and you won’t see me for half an hour. I’ll go cry in my room and come back.”
Freddie opened up about his mental health struggles, saying, “I struggle with anxiety, you know, I have nightmares, flashbacks – it’s been so hard to cope with.”
“But I’m thinking if I don’t do something I’m never going to go. I’ve got to get on with it.”
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Freddie had to be airlifted to hospital following the accident at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome, Surrey, in December 2022, as he filmed an episode of Top Gear with co-stars Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris.
The three-wheel roadster he was driving flipped and left him with substantial facial lacerations, broken bones and damage to his teeth.
