Lynne McGranger evacuated after suffering ‘dangerous’ medical emergency

Hearts were racing for a very different reason on Shark! when Lynne McGranger’s first scuba dive took a dangerous turn.

Medics rushed to the 72-year-old’s aid who, after being pulled back to the surface, appeared worryingly “lifeless” and “limp”.

“I was fearful for her, in a major way. You didn’t have to be a doctor and look at her and go, this is not good,” stressed co-star Matt Nable just as they had to abruptly abort their dive.

McGranger was one of six Aussie stars undergoing a dive qualifier in the new series, to assess their skills, nerves and confidence in the water before facing one of the world’s most notorious sharks, the tiger shark.

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McGranger revealed she wasn’t a “strong swimmer” and worried most about balancing her buoyancy while seven metres deep in the sea.

But as the water became choppy, the Golden Logie winner was “trying very hard” to remain calm – until water began leaking through the bottom of her mask.

An “exhausted” McGranger was struggling. Her legs started to go limp and she was coughing underwater.

Worry began to set in for former Navy clearance diver Paul de Gelder: “As soon as you’re underwater and you start breathing in, you are in a dangerous situation if you don’t know what to do. She could drown, in her mask.”

They frantically but carefully pulled McGranger to the surface as a medic pulled off her mask.

“She was pretty lifeless, her body was quite limp,” feared shark expert Annie Guttridge. “And I could see some of the colour in her face had been removed.”

Watch the heart-racing moment in the video below:

McGranger was put on oxygen and with the hospital on standby, they raced back to land.

While Guttridge put it down to exhaustion, she feared this could be a case of secondary drowning.

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“Secondary drowning is when you take on an amount of water that doesn’t necessarily go into your stomach, it goes into your lungs,” she explained.

“Which is a danger because it can happen right there and it can happen days later.”

The cast was rattled. Nable refused to take on any more challenges until they knew McGranger was OK.

“It was just a sick, sad feeling,” reacted Tammy Hembrow.

“We need to make sure she’s going to be alright after this,” stressed de Gelder.