Ice cream truck washed away by sea as tourists look on in horror

The Kelly’s ice cream van became stuck in the sand at the western end of the tourist beach at Harlyn Bay in north Cornwall as the tide began to turn on Sunday afternoon

Ice cream truck washed ashore on Harlyn Bay beach in Cornwall((Mary vintage/SWNS)

Dramatic footage shows an ice cream truck being swept away by the sea.

The Kelly’s ice cream truck became stuck in the sand at the western end of Harlyn Bay beach in north Cornwall as the tide began to turn on Sunday afternoon. Despite multiple attempts to pull the truck out of the water, the tide was too strong and it was left swirling against the rocks.

Footage of the incident was taken at around 4pm by Abi Fisk, a holidaymaker who runs the Vintage Mary store. She said she saw a 4×4 with a winch nearby trying “really hard to pull it out” as it was swept away by the ocean. Abi said “lots of surfers” and other people on the beach tried to help.

It was left swirling against the rocks((Mary vintage/SWNS)

She said: “They managed to pull him quite far up the beach while he was still surrounded by waves, before he got stuck on the rocks.” But as the tide was coming in “really fast”, the group were forced to abandon the van, and shortly afterwards the coastguard arrived.

Abi, from Stroud, Gloucestershire, added: “The coastguard will be monitoring the ice cream truck until the tide goes out and a local rescue team on standby can remove the ice cream truck from the beach.” Abi described the whole incident as “very strange” and like something “straight out of an end of the world movie”.

She said: “The ice cream truck driver drove straight down to the bottom of the beach, right down to the lowest point of the low tide. The beach was packed, it was the first proper summer beach day we’d had for a few days, so it was a beautiful day and he probably wanted to do business with him.

Despite multiple attempts to get the van out of the water, the tide was too strong((Mary vintage/SWNS)

“But then the tide started coming in and he couldn’t get going again. People in the car park in 4x4s tried to winch him out, but the front tyre had sunk into the sand. They even tried to tow the van out while it was stuck in the sea, but it got completely stuck in rocks.

“The man nearly lost his SUV himself, so rescuers advised him to leave and take over. Shortly after the SUV abandoned the ice cream truck, the Coast Guard stood guard, watching it and making sure it didn’t wander off, and that no one swam out to it.