A local diver said he feared for his life as he rescued an orca whale caught in rope off the Coromandel coast.
Rhys Cochrane, the Dive Master at Cathedral Cove Hahei, said as he went under the water to cut the rope from the whale he became afraid for his own safety.
"Just before I dove down to cut the line about five other orcas as well as one massive bull came round and that's when I started getting a little bit scared with this thing in the water about three times the size of me."
He said his family dive business had received a call-out from the Department of Conservation at 4.30pm yesterday.
DOC said the orca, which was tangled in the rope of a cray pot several 100 metres off the coast, was in distress and needed to be freed.
Cochrane said his mother called him and they went out on a dive boat to the location.
Cochrane filmed the exhausted orca as he went to its rescue.
"I didn't know the extent of how bad it was tangled so I jumped in with the camera and then I could see it was wrapped around the tail a couple of times and I quickly handed the camera to the skipper of the boat and traded it for a knife."
He said the orca would have been in the water for at least an hour or two and seemed stressed and looked tired.
The young diver said the cray pot was likely stuck to the reef and the whale struggled as it dragged it up to come up for air.
Cochrane said the whale had suffered cuts on its head, body and the tail.
"But he seemed fine once I cut the rope he quickly swam away."
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