TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp has revealed she was airlifted to hospital after slipping and breaking her leg.
The Location, Location, Location host, who turned 55 on August 31, shared a photo on Instagram showing her lying in an ambulance with cuts on her face and a breathing tube in her nose.
She wrote that almost every year since her son Oscar, 18, was born, the family had celebrated her birthday at their home, Meadowgate, in Devon, 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.
But Allsopp said 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”.
“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,” she continued.
“I was given a huge amount of painkillers, so I omitted to ask anyone for their social media details.”
Allsopp then asked for help identifying those who had helped, but added that she had “far more people than that to thank”.
She said: “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.
“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.”
Allsopp shared a series of photos after the accident, including some of her leg in a cast in hospital, an X-ray of the injury and images of the beach.
She also asked for donations to be made to the organisations who assisted her.
Commenting on the post, Devon Air Ambulance clarified it had assisted her, writing: “Kirstie, we’re so glad to hear you’re recovering well.
“It was actually our Devon Air Ambulance crew who attended on this occasion. We work very closely with our friends at Cornwall Air Ambulance, the RNLI, South Western Ambulance Service and other emergency service partners, particularly in border areas such as Bude and Welcombe.
“Most importantly, we’re pleased you received the care you needed so quickly and safely.
“The crew who attended would be delighted to hear your kind words, and once you’re back on your feet we’d love to welcome you to one of our airbases so you can meet the team who attended you, and see first hand how our critical care service operates. Wishing you a speedy recovery from everyone at Devon Air Ambulance.”
In 2023 Allsopp was forced to pull out of filming Location, Location, Location after falling down a staircase in a pub during filming for the Channel 4 programme.
Updating her followers on Instagram at the time, she said: “I should be out filming Location, Location, Location, except yesterday, when we were in a pub in Stoke Newington, filming our start of day chat with our lovely house hunters Beth and Rory, I went off to the loo.
“And unfortunately I got something wrong and I ended up falling down an entire flight of stairs.”
She continued: “It was, I think without a doubt, the scariest thing and most painful thing I have ever done in my life and I feel immensely blessed to be lying here in bed and not having broken anything.”
Allsopp said she had been left “bruised and battered” and apologised to the show’s sound man after screaming when she fell.
She added: “At the time it was incredibly painful, it didn’t feel that comic but when I was lying with my dress around my waist on the pub floor by the toilets, which I had been heading to, I did think, there is a comic element to it! And I think my colleagues who got a terrible fright could eventually see the funny sight.”
In 2024, the TV presenter shared a post on Instagram explaining that she and property developer Ben Andersen had purchased Meadowgate “as a ruin” just before Oscar was born.
She wrote: “For almost as long we’ve spent every August Bank Holiday here with many friends & their kids.
“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.”
A week earlier she had revealed she had let her youngest son, who was 15 at the time, Interrail across Europe for three weeks with a friend.
After Allsopp revealed she had received “a call from children services”, she defended her decision, writing 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.
“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 also has a son Bay, 20, with her husband, and is stepmother to his two sons from a previous marriage.
She has hosted Location, Location, Location with Phil Spencer since the show launched in 2000.
She has also presented Love It Or List It UK and Relocation, Relocation.
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