The full stories behind why Richard P and Callum were both rushed to A and E.
In true CountrySlide style there is a complete lack of sympathy and instead a rather thoughtful conversation about the NHS, particularly in rural areas.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.You can contact us by email on: contact@countryslide.co.uk
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The Hosts
Richard Negus website
Callum McInerney-Riley website
Richard Prideaux website
Edited and Produced by Amy Green for Rural and Outdoor.
Richard N: There we go. You see, that there is the sound of leeches. Leeches on society. Users of the National Health Service. It's the sound of people who take more than they give to society. Here's me, a picture of health—well, my family has all got colds, but none of us are doing anything other than giving to the greater good. And then there's you two. Sucking at the teat of Britain.
Richard P: Mine involved an air ambulance as well, so I think we’ve cost a charity some money too.
Richard N: Yeah. And you, Callum, yours was just a regular ambulance. So listen, dear listeners of Countryslide, perhaps we should explain. This isn't the crappiest start of an episode of Casualty you've ever heard.
Callum M-R: NHS special.
Richard N: NHS special. You see, this is what Countryslide is all about. We dig down into the depths of everything that goes wrong largely in the countryside. We did intend to talk about health today, but unfortunately, circumstances overtook us. I think Callum should go first, because his story is shorter.
Callum M-R: I really don't want to be a topper. It sounds like I've done this for the content, but it was not a great moment. So, my two-year-old is at a stage where she will look you dead in the eye and do horrible things just because she thinks it's brilliant. Yesterday, she trapped her brother in the Wendy house and started pulling his hair. After I told her off and dragged her out, the next thing I know, she has a fistful of coins. I said, "No!" and went over to retrieve them, but she put them straight into her mouth.
I inverted her, tapped her on the back, and the coins fell out. But so did about six Easter eggs, a blue raspberry ice cream, and a moussaka—just luminous blue, chunky aubergine all over the dog bed, up the wall, and over the skirting.
Richard P: This wasn't like a slot machine paying out, right?
Callum M-R: No, unfortunately not. She was sick, and about an hour later, she kept being sick intermittently. So we went to A&E, and they saw us quite quickly. At one point, they pulled a metal detector out, scanned over the child, and it went beep. The nurse said, "I'm not wearing any rings, can we just double-check she hasn't got any metal on her?" Beep, beep. "Okay, I'm going to pass you on to somebody else."
Richard P: You get the special treatment now.
Callum M-R: Yeah, "Now we think you're full of coins." So we had several X-rays, and found out a coin was stuck in her oesophagus. Thankfully, it hadn't gone down the windpipe, but it does make you reflect on how much worse it could have been. We then had to find an anaesthetist willing to sedate a two-year-old. Everybody was willing to take the job until they heard her age, and then they backed out. Shout out to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge—they decided to take it on. We went in at about 9:00 last night and left at 3:00 this afternoon.
Richard P: What was your blood pressure like from the handful of coins right through to when you messaged me saying it was out?
Callum M-R: The anaesthetic bit was really scary. In the ambulance, they were worried it would come back up and block her airway, so they had to take a resus guy in the ambulance from Harlow to Cambridge. The NHS staff were wonderful, but you got the sense they were working with one arm tied behind their backs. They were super stretched for resources. Thankfully, it was resolved well.
Richard N: Let's cut to the chase here. Have you got the coin back?
Callum M-R: Yeah! There was almost a sweepstake going on in the back room because all they could see was the X-ray, but no obvious sign of what the coin was. It was a 1p coin. The most pointless coin left in our pocket. I think it came from a little bag of international change my son has.
Richard N: So we have seen how you have leeched off society by feeding your child coins. We now move on to Mr. Prideaux. Sadly, this podcast doesn't have cameras, but to paint a picture: imagine James Robertson Justice propped up in bed in Carry On Doctor. Richard has a bell from a hotel front counter next to him, which is the sound you heard at the start of the show. Why are you propped up in bed, Richard?
Richard P: I should address the bell first. This was a gift from a mystery supporter in Suffolk who lays hedges. He thought this bell—which summons people to this room where I'm an invalid—would be a good way to cement security in my marriage.
Anyway, as is known, I occasionally turn my hand to cutting down trees. I was working on a maiden coppice—a bit of woodland being cut down for the first time so the shoots can regrow—and trying to get it done by the end of March. I was cutting an ash tree that was about 40 centimetres in diameter. It had fallen, but it was still slightly attached at the hinge. The tree had a hell of a lot of tension in it, which I expected, but what I didn't expect was this weird corkscrew tension that had built up as it twisted.
I got to the very last centimetre of the cut, and I don't remember much until I was on the ground. The tree kicked up, out, sideways, and then down, kicking me about three metres off to the side. Imagine a really big tree-shaped horse kicking you just below the kneecap at 70 miles an hour.
Callum M-R: Like the ultimate coffee table in the dark.
Richard P: Exactly. My chainsaw was still running on my leg, so I got that dealt with and called for help. I started moving my feet and thought, "I think I'm okay. Just bruised." And then I went to stand up, and there was the crunchy pain.
Callum M-R: I've never broken a bone, but I can picture that "crunchy pain" in my head, and I don't like it.
Richard P: You can feel the sharpness of different edges of bone hitting each other. My partner, Amy, had gotten to me at this point. I initially tried non-emergency numbers, but the wait was 67 minutes. We called 999, and Amy gave a great handover, explaining it was a forestry crush injury. We gave our What3Words location for the woodland gate. The ambulance said they would be three hours.
I had to get to the edge of the wood, so I started hobbling 300 metres using an ash pole as a walking stick. It wasn't the hopping that was the problem; it was that every time I hopped, my broken bone separated and then played back together. On a pain scale of zero to ten, it was about a 10.5 every single step. Without exaggeration, it was the hardest physical thing I've ever done.
About halfway through, we heard a helicopter. It was the brand new EC145 Welsh Air Ambulance. They landed in a neighbour's field. The doctor assessed me and gave me Penthrox—the "green whistle." It's an amazing painkiller vaporizer. You take a big hit and you have no feeling for about 30 seconds. A road ambulance then arrived to take me to our local A&E, which has been in special measures since 2015.
Callum M-R: You didn't even get a flight!
Richard P: No! They had weight issues because they had students on board. When I got to the hospital, I had to cut my own chainsaw trousers off in bed, which was fun. The consultant eventually told me it was a Schatzker Type 2 fracture of the tibia. Half of the top of the bone had snapped off. If I'd put full weight on it, my leg would have gone sideways like a Twiglet. I went into surgery, got plated and fillered, and now I can't put weight on my foot until the end of May. Six months before I can do any heavy forestry work again.
Richard N: It's fascinating. Those of us who work hands-on in forestry and farming make up a mere 1% of the British workforce, yet our work contributes to 18% of all workplace fatalities. You were aware of the risks, but this thing just bit you. And what you encountered highlights a real issue: the NHS in rural areas is practically worse than everywhere else.
The House of Lords report on rural NHS failings noted that the current funding formula fails to account for the "unavoidable smallness of the population." Because we live in remote areas, we don't warrant proper hospitals under their formula.
Callum M-R: It's an interesting observation. In rural family units, often the person doing the physical labor is the sole breadwinner. If that person slips with a chainsaw, that affects the whole family farm. It's a huge risk for rural families to have terrible healthcare when they take such physical risks.
Richard P: There's an ageing population level to that as well. Rural areas are increasingly places where people retire. In my orthopaedic ward, I was the youngest person there by 20 years. The local services have to gear up towards an economically inactive ageing population, meanwhile, the functional working-age economy is finding it increasingly hard to get care.
Richard N: Absolutely. If you lose one of those links in a farming family—the one doing the physical labor or the one running the farm office—you are knackered. We're using billhooks, chainsaws, and heavy machinery. Basically, any single thing we do for a job is like the opening credits of Casualty.
So here we have Richard laid up like a Carry On character, and Callum holding a penny that acted like a Pez machine in reverse. We have highlighted a proper rural challenge today.
Richard P: Before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out, but in particular to Amy and my mother. I am basically bedridden and can barely leave this room, so every need of mine has to be taken care of. I know I've been insufferable. My very first job was working in a care home, so I know what it's like on the other end. I want to say thank you to them for looking after me and not killing me in my sleep.
Richard N: And I'd like to say sorry to Amy and Richard's mum for buying that bloody bell. I thought it'd be funny!
Richard P: There will be people up and down the country listening who have been in this situation. It's a bit flippant, but we know what it's like. After show?
Richard N: Bye everyone. After show.
Richard P: Mine involved an air ambulance as well, so I think we’ve cost a charity some money too.
Richard N: Yeah. And you, Callum, yours was just a regular ambulance. So listen, dear listeners of Countryslide, perhaps we should explain. This isn't the crappiest start of an episode of Casualty you've ever heard.
Callum M-R: NHS special.
Richard N: NHS special. You see, this is what Countryslide is all about. We dig down into the depths of everything that goes wrong largely in the countryside. We did intend to talk about health today, but unfortunately, circumstances overtook us. I think Callum should go first, because his story is shorter.
Callum M-R: I really don't want to be a topper. It sounds like I've done this for the content, but it was not a great moment. So, my two-year-old is at a stage where she will look you dead in the eye and do horrible things just because she thinks it's brilliant. Yesterday, she trapped her brother in the Wendy house and started pulling his hair. After I told her off and dragged her out, the next thing I know, she has a fistful of coins. I said, "No!" and went over to retrieve them, but she put them straight into her mouth.
I inverted her, tapped her on the back, and the coins fell out. But so did about six Easter eggs, a blue raspberry ice cream, and a moussaka—just luminous blue, chunky aubergine all over the dog bed, up the wall, and over the skirting.
Richard P: This wasn't like a slot machine paying out, right?
Callum M-R: No, unfortunately not. She was sick, and about an hour later, she kept being sick intermittently. So we went to A&E, and they saw us quite quickly. At one point, they pulled a metal detector out, scanned over the child, and it went beep. The nurse said, "I'm not wearing any rings, can we just double-check she hasn't got any metal on her?" Beep, beep. "Okay, I'm going to pass you on to somebody else."
Richard P: You get the special treatment now.
Callum M-R: Yeah, "Now we think you're full of coins." So we had several X-rays, and found out a coin was stuck in her oesophagus. Thankfully, it hadn't gone down the windpipe, but it does make you reflect on how much worse it could have been. We then had to find an anaesthetist willing to sedate a two-year-old. Everybody was willing to take the job until they heard her age, and then they backed out. Shout out to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge—they decided to take it on. We went in at about 9:00 last night and left at 3:00 this afternoon.
Richard P: What was your blood pressure like from the handful of coins right through to when you messaged me saying it was out?
Callum M-R: The anaesthetic bit was really scary. In the ambulance, they were worried it would come back up and block her airway, so they had to take a resus guy in the ambulance from Harlow to Cambridge. The NHS staff were wonderful, but you got the sense they were working with one arm tied behind their backs. They were super stretched for resources. Thankfully, it was resolved well.
Richard N: Let's cut to the chase here. Have you got the coin back?
Callum M-R: Yeah! There was almost a sweepstake going on in the back room because all they could see was the X-ray, but no obvious sign of what the coin was. It was a 1p coin. The most pointless coin left in our pocket. I think it came from a little bag of international change my son has.
Richard N: So we have seen how you have leeched off society by feeding your child coins. We now move on to Mr. Prideaux. Sadly, this podcast doesn't have cameras, but to paint a picture: imagine James Robertson Justice propped up in bed in Carry On Doctor. Richard has a bell from a hotel front counter next to him, which is the sound you heard at the start of the show. Why are you propped up in bed, Richard?
Richard P: I should address the bell first. This was a gift from a mystery supporter in Suffolk who lays hedges. He thought this bell—which summons people to this room where I'm an invalid—would be a good way to cement security in my marriage.
Anyway, as is known, I occasionally turn my hand to cutting down trees. I was working on a maiden coppice—a bit of woodland being cut down for the first time so the shoots can regrow—and trying to get it done by the end of March. I was cutting an ash tree that was about 40 centimetres in diameter. It had fallen, but it was still slightly attached at the hinge. The tree had a hell of a lot of tension in it, which I expected, but what I didn't expect was this weird corkscrew tension that had built up as it twisted.
I got to the very last centimetre of the cut, and I don't remember much until I was on the ground. The tree kicked up, out, sideways, and then down, kicking me about three metres off to the side. Imagine a really big tree-shaped horse kicking you just below the kneecap at 70 miles an hour.
Callum M-R: Like the ultimate coffee table in the dark.
Richard P: Exactly. My chainsaw was still running on my leg, so I got that dealt with and called for help. I started moving my feet and thought, "I think I'm okay. Just bruised." And then I went to stand up, and there was the crunchy pain.
Callum M-R: I've never broken a bone, but I can picture that "crunchy pain" in my head, and I don't like it.
Richard P: You can feel the sharpness of different edges of bone hitting each other. My partner, Amy, had gotten to me at this point. I initially tried non-emergency numbers, but the wait was 67 minutes. We called 999, and Amy gave a great handover, explaining it was a forestry crush injury. We gave our What3Words location for the woodland gate. The ambulance said they would be three hours.
I had to get to the edge of the wood, so I started hobbling 300 metres using an ash pole as a walking stick. It wasn't the hopping that was the problem; it was that every time I hopped, my broken bone separated and then played back together. On a pain scale of zero to ten, it was about a 10.5 every single step. Without exaggeration, it was the hardest physical thing I've ever done.
About halfway through, we heard a helicopter. It was the brand new EC145 Welsh Air Ambulance. They landed in a neighbour's field. The doctor assessed me and gave me Penthrox—the "green whistle." It's an amazing painkiller vaporizer. You take a big hit and you have no feeling for about 30 seconds. A road ambulance then arrived to take me to our local A&E, which has been in special measures since 2015.
Callum M-R: You didn't even get a flight!
Richard P: No! They had weight issues because they had students on board. When I got to the hospital, I had to cut my own chainsaw trousers off in bed, which was fun. The consultant eventually told me it was a Schatzker Type 2 fracture of the tibia. Half of the top of the bone had snapped off. If I'd put full weight on it, my leg would have gone sideways like a Twiglet. I went into surgery, got plated and fillered, and now I can't put weight on my foot until the end of May. Six months before I can do any heavy forestry work again.
Richard N: It's fascinating. Those of us who work hands-on in forestry and farming make up a mere 1% of the British workforce, yet our work contributes to 18% of all workplace fatalities. You were aware of the risks, but this thing just bit you. And what you encountered highlights a real issue: the NHS in rural areas is practically worse than everywhere else.
The House of Lords report on rural NHS failings noted that the current funding formula fails to account for the "unavoidable smallness of the population." Because we live in remote areas, we don't warrant proper hospitals under their formula.
Callum M-R: It's an interesting observation. In rural family units, often the person doing the physical labor is the sole breadwinner. If that person slips with a chainsaw, that affects the whole family farm. It's a huge risk for rural families to have terrible healthcare when they take such physical risks.
Richard P: There's an ageing population level to that as well. Rural areas are increasingly places where people retire. In my orthopaedic ward, I was the youngest person there by 20 years. The local services have to gear up towards an economically inactive ageing population, meanwhile, the functional working-age economy is finding it increasingly hard to get care.
Richard N: Absolutely. If you lose one of those links in a farming family—the one doing the physical labor or the one running the farm office—you are knackered. We're using billhooks, chainsaws, and heavy machinery. Basically, any single thing we do for a job is like the opening credits of Casualty.
So here we have Richard laid up like a Carry On character, and Callum holding a penny that acted like a Pez machine in reverse. We have highlighted a proper rural challenge today.
Richard P: Before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out, but in particular to Amy and my mother. I am basically bedridden and can barely leave this room, so every need of mine has to be taken care of. I know I've been insufferable. My very first job was working in a care home, so I know what it's like on the other end. I want to say thank you to them for looking after me and not killing me in my sleep.
Richard N: And I'd like to say sorry to Amy and Richard's mum for buying that bloody bell. I thought it'd be funny!
Richard P: There will be people up and down the country listening who have been in this situation. It's a bit flippant, but we know what it's like. After show?
Richard N: Bye everyone. After show.