Reuben Owen admitted he was left panicking and terrified after a series of mishaps during the latest episode of Life in the Dales. The young farmer, who shares the highs and lows of his profession on his family farm in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, on the Channel 5 series, rose to fame alongside his parents Clive and Amanda on Our Yorkshire Farm.
New Digger and Panic Button
The episode, which aired on Tuesday, June 9, saw the team return to work at the start of the new year. However, weather conditions created difficulties, with Reuben admitting he was 'terrified' at one point. The start of the episode showed him showing off his new machinery to cheer himself up amid the 'back to work January blues'. Unveiling his new digger to his girlfriend Jess and her father David, he revealed it came with a 'panic button', something he had never seen before.
Panic on the Farm
Within minutes, the button came into use as Reuben admitted, 'I'm panicked.' With icy temperatures creating more work on the farm, Reuben used his new digger for a pond project for a client, but a setback sent him home. As the digger started creating smoke, Reuben confessed, 'Is now a good time to press the panic button? I'm pretty panicked.' He added, 'That is not supposed to do that!' before admitting, 'I think I've broken it already.'
Icy Roads and Near-Accident
While waiting for an expert to fix the digger, Reuben attempted to continue with the pond job the next day, but a road closure sent him and Jess onto icy backroads. The detour put them on higher land on roads that had not been gritted, leaving the couple fearing they had made the wrong choice. 'The worst thing will be if we don't get up, is turning around,' he told Jess, before realising the road was too icy to continue driving on.
'That was very scary,' he went on, as his truck became stuck. After sliding on the sheets of ice covering the ground, Reuben and Jess were forced to call for help. Jess said, 'It's bad, you can't just stop on ice, once you start skidding, you can't stop. Reuben put the handbrake on but the vehicle is still skidding, no control whatsoever.'
Fear and Rescue
The Channel 5 narrator added, 'They were lucky they didn't crash or go over the edge,' as Reuben shared, 'I can't tell you how terrified I was.' 'We are so lucky,' Jess added. Reuben went on, 'It's not worth risking your life, the job will still be there tomorrow.' Having salvaged some grit from the roadside, Jess feared, 'This is really bad, I'm actually really worried.' She added, 'I don't usually get concerned but I'm concerned.'
After they turned back and abandoned their work for the day, Jess and Reuben faced another issue en route as the roads had turned even icier. 'Just when you thought your day couldn't get any worse,' Jess hopelessly said, as Reuben called Sonny to 'rescue' him. 'I need a hero that's happy to experience extreme cold and extreme peril,' he told him, with Sonny coming to the rescue with Reuben's brother Miles and a big bag of grit. 'It's been a challenging start to the new year, and Reuben hopes this is the last of it,' the narrator added.
Reuben Owen: Life in the Dales airs Tuesdays at 8pm on Channel 5.
