Things didn’t look good for this sea turtle after it got tangled in a lawn chair which had been tossed into the ocean.

But thanks to eagle-eyed scuba divers, who spotted it desperately trying to catch its breath as it bobbed up and down in the sea, the creature lives to fight another day.

Graham Maddocks performed a rescue mission by free diving into the water and releasing the turtle from the chair before allowing it to swim away apparently in good health.

Mr. Maddocks, the owner of Triangle Diving, at Grotto Bay, said he was out scuba diving with a group of people in Ferry Reach on Sunday morning when they noticed the animal had got into difficulty.

He was supported in the operation by fellow diver Tessa Robins, who jumped into the water to help out.

“I thought something was wrong, because the turtle would go down under the water and then it would be flapping around on the surface. Then it would go back down,” said Mr. Maddocks.

“When I got to him, he was stuck in the chair. I brought him up to the surface so he could breathe, and got him back to the boat.

“I don’t know if he had been stuck in it for very long but he was struggling with the water and eventually he would have drowned. It was lucky we saw him when we did.”

Scuba diver Ken Vickers, who watched the event unfold, said the turtle swam off happily after being released.

Mr. Maddocks says he spots turtles in distress a couple of times a year, and the problem is usually caused by humans.

“I don’t know what a chair was doing in the sea,” he said. “We have had turtles before that have fishing lines wrapped around them. Human beings seem to spend most of their existence taking care of themselves without a thought for anything else.”