A WELL-KNOWN Felixstowe businessman is recovering today collapsing with a heart attack in his seafront shop.Joe Crowley was suddenly taken ill in his café and ice cream parlour but was saved by a fellow seafront worker who knew first aid and a nurse who was nearby.

By Richard Cornwell

A WELL-KNOWN Felixstowe businessman is recovering today collapsing with a heart attack in his seafront shop.

Joe Crowley was suddenly taken ill in his café and ice cream parlour but was saved by a fellow seafront worker who knew first aid and a nurse who was nearby.

Michelle Macdonald was one of the first on the scene after someone rushed into the neighbouring ice cream parlour where she was working and told her 52-year-old Mr Crowley had collapsed.

Miss Macdonald, 22, of Beatrice Avenue, Felixstowe, said: “They asked if anyone was a doctor and as I know first aid I said I would go and help. A woman who was in the shop and is a nurse at Addenbrooke's Hospital came, too.

“We gave Mr Crowley CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to try to get his heart restarted and keep him alive until the ambulance crew arrived and then we worked with them.

“It was a port ambulance and they had a defibrillator on board which they then used to start his heart and after a few minutes he was able to breath by himself.”

Miss Macdonald, who this year graduated as a physiotherapist and is currently working at the Little Ice Cream Company, said Mr Crowley had seemed such a “laid back character”.

She said: “It was quite a shock to see him suffer a heart attack - he always seemed so relaxed and was always outside his shop chatting to everyone who went by. Everyone likes him and is just such a part of the seafront.”

Mr Crowley, known by everyone as Joe but whose real name is Kevin, is understood to still be in Ipswich Hospital recovering, following the incident at 3.45pm on Friday.

He opened his ice cream shop in Hamilton Road six years ago before moving to Undercliff Road West after a couple of years to capitalise on the seafront trade.

Dressed in his authentic US Naval pinks, he is a well known character - his shop reflecting his great interest and love of America just after the second world war, especially the music, fashion, cars and way of life of the 1950s.

The shop also has what is believed to be Europe's only working soda fountain.

Send your messages of support to Mr Crowley. Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail EveningStarLetters@eveningstar.co.uk