A sea diver has vowed to get back into the water despite being airlifted to hospital after suffering a serious illness while wreck-diving off the Northumbrian coast.

The emergency services, RAF and a lifeboat crew mounted a rescue operation to get unconscious Simon Moorhouse to hospital when he suffered a cerebral embolism – a potentially fatal blockage of air bubbles in an artery in the brain.

Mr Moorhouse, a critical care nurse, of Sutton-in-Craven, suffered “intense” head pains and blacked out after returning from a dive with wife Naomi and members of Keighley divers and Skipton Buddies diving club.

They managed to get Mr Moorhouse back to the shore at Seahouses, Northumbria and into a Sea King helicopter.

He was flown to Aberdeen hospital he spent about six hours in a decompression chamber to remove dangerous air bubbles in his blood stream.

Speaking from his home in Dovelands, he said that, despite the ordeal, he would continue diving in the future.

Mr Moorhouse, 25, said: “I have got to get checked out by a local hospital then, as long as my lungs are OK, I will be ready to go again.

“I have been diving for 13 years and I don’t want to stop now and, as long as you have got a crew who you trust, there should be no reason not to.”

The team had been diving in the Farne Islands, a well-known area for shipwrecks and a habitat for grey seals, last Saturday, August 6.

Mr Moorhouse had surfaced from a 52-minute dive to depths of 23 metres and had got back on board their boat, Glad Tidings.

He said: “I got my fins off and went to sit down. Then I started with a really intense pain in the front and back of my head and I don’t remember much after that.”

His fellow divers alerted the coastguard and gave him oxygen as they travelled the three miles back to shore. He was airlifted to hospital, where he remained for two days.

He said: “Naomi was my dive buddy and she must have been terrified. It seems really surreal to me, like it happened to somebody else.”

Mr Moorhouse thanked his rescuers, including the diving team, Billy Shiels, skipper of Glad Tidings, the ambulance, air crew and hospital staff.