Crushed builder joins calls for better mobile coverage in Shropshire

This week MP Owen Paterson told mobile phone bosses they were putting lives at risk by not improving reception in rural Shropshire.

Now Ryan Pugh, from Lydbury North, near Bishop's Castle, has spoken out about what happened to him as a case in point.

Ryan, a 20-year-old agricultural building contractor, was trapped under a mini digger in the shed of a property he was working at in Brockton, near Lydbury North, for three hours, unable to call for help because he had no phone signal.

Suffering a crushed stomach, he was only found when his father went looking for him.

Though now fully recovered, Ryan was in intensive care for a week and had to have an operation to repair damage to his internal organs.

The accident happened in April in the rural Bishop's Castle and Clun area, which is notorious for bad mobile signal.

Ryan said he was working alone and changing the oil on the digger when the bucket arm fell and pinned him. He said: "

I reached for the phone but of course it had no signal. It was so frustrating.

"After a while I couldn't feel my legs at all."

Mother Jane Pugh, who runs Jane's Petals and Gifts in Bishop's Castle, said: "It got to about 10pm and we thought 'where is he, what's going on?' So Andrew, my husband, went out to look for him at the building he was working at.

"He saw his van outside but no lights on in the shed. Andrew's first reaction was to get a jack and Ryan just flopped over. They waited for an ambulance for an hour. He was taken to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and he had a week in intensive care with a tear in his bowel. "He has now made a full recovery," she said.

Mr Paterson said this week he was concerned there were still many areas in Shropshire without a good signal. He said thousands had signed the Star's Get Us Connected petition calling for EE, Vodafone, Three and O2 to improve their service in rural areas.