Television presenter Kirstie Allsopp has said she needed an air ambulance after slipping on a beach and injuring her leg. The Location, Location, Location star, 55, posted an image on Instagram showing her inside an ambulance with facial injuries and an oxygen tube.
She explained that nearly every year since the birth of her son Oscar, now 18, the family had marked her birthday at Meadowgate, their Devon home, which she called "one of my favourite places on earth". "We have a picnic on the beach at Welcombe Mouth, a swim and a walk back to the house for some cake," she wrote. However, this year she had "slipped on a muddy patch on the steep path, and it took a whole host of people to get me to hospital". She continued: "After a little wait while poor Oscar ran as fast as he could to get help, and the RNLI Bude Lifeboat paramedics and Cornwall Air Ambulance tracked me down. I was given a huge amount of painkillers, so I omitted to ask anyone for their social media details."
Allsopp then appealed for help identifying those who had aided her, while acknowledging she had "far more people than that to thank". She remarked: "God only knows what I was like to deal with high as a kite! Everyone at Barnstaple hospital has been amazing, kind & caring, so many lovely people doing their absolute best. They have operated on the leg and I'll be home soon. It'll be a boot and crutches for a while, but I feel very, very lucky that it was possible to reach me and get me to hospital so quickly, and I have a job that I can do on crutches." She added: "Not a birthday I am going to forget in a hurry and again, THANK YOU to all those who have been involved in my care."
Following the incident, Allsopp posted several photographs on social media, showing her leg in a cast in hospital, an X-ray of the injury, and pictures of the beach where the accident happened.
In 2024, the television personality took to Instagram to reveal that she and property developer Ben Andersen had bought Meadowgate "as a ruin" shortly before Oscar's birth. She explained: "For almost as long we've spent every August Bank Holiday here with many friends & their kids." Reflecting on the tradition, she said: "This is where many of them had their first taste of independence, walking to the beach alone or going rock pooling and returning safely with their treasures, this year there are only 5 kids with us, and they aren't really kids at all, the others are working, travelling or studying, living independently as they should be. It is our job to raise our children to leave the nest, the enormous cost of nests aside."
Just seven days before that post, she had disclosed that she'd allowed her youngest son, then 15, to Interrail across Europe for three weeks with a friend. After Allsopp revealed she had received "a call from children services", she stood by her choice, posting on Instagram: "When I said Oscar had done what so many, many young people did after O Levels, and now after GCSEs, and gone inter railing, despite being Summer born and therefore young for his school year, I knew some people might think…, but I thought his trip was inspiring, and it never occurred to me in a million years that a call from children services would be involved, it's been a huge shock, not least for Oscar." She went on: "But I hope the silver lining to this cloud is that everyone stops & thinks about the freedoms we had as children, and ask what harm could be done, not by the freedoms, but by the restrictions and fears we are imposing on our kids."
Allsopp is also mother to Bay, 20, whom she shares with her husband, and serves as stepmother to his two sons from an earlier relationship.
Kirstie Allsopp Airlifted to Hospital After Devon Beach Fall