The wife of a man whose life was saved at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 2000 began fundraising for the Critical Care Unit soon afterwards.
On Friday (August 10), Maud Gillen presented the unit with a cheque for £1,000 to show their appreciation to the unit.
Mrs Gillen was braced to lose husband Joe (now 86) when he spent three weeks in intensive care and seven weeks in total at the King’s Lynn hospital.
The Gillens lived at Sutton St Edmund at the time but now home is in Daniels Gate, Long Sutton.
When Mr Gillen was well enough to be left on his own, his wife teamed up with Mr Gillen’s sister, Vera Smith, to hold sales of handicraft items in nearby village halls.
They sold items they had made such as Christmas cards, crackers, peg bags and pinnies.
Mrs Gillen said: “It was a very tough time when Joe was in hospital. I was told that he might not survive, but the staff did an amazing job and gradually he pulled through.
“I started the sales with Vera to raise some money as a way of saying thank you to the unit. We’ve topped it up to £1,000 now and we’re really pleased to hand it over.”
A card club which Mrs Gillen started in the early days of her fundraising is still active today in The Market House in Long Sutton.
