A group of heroic divers painstakingly cut free a turtle that was trapped with huge ghost netting wrapped around its shell.

Simon Lorenz was leading one of his Insider Divers tours off Sri Lanka in April when he spotted a huge clump of trash floating in the water nearby with flippers slapping on the surface right next to it.

Distressing footage shows the olive ridley turtle had become entangled in the netting, with her head, flippers and shell totally tied up.

Having swam around the animal to check where she was entangled, Simon, 44, asked their guide to jump in the water and help cut her free as he had a knife on him.

The rest of Simon’s tour jumped in to stabilise the turtle and after more than 30 minutes of cutting her loose, she was able to swim off uninjured.

Simon, who has been running Insider Divers since 2017, said: “We were out on the ocean looking for whales when we came across this huge patch of floating ghost net. It was just full of plastic and other trash.

“We always check them on our ocean safaris to see if there are interesting fish gathering around it. The nets are also a huge danger because wildlife can get entangled in them.

“In this case we found an olive ridley sea turtle totally entangled in it, probably after resting on the island at night. It was helpless and would dry out and die slowly over the coming days and weeks.

“I asked the guide to jump in as he had a knife and he started cutting the turtle free. The turtle was very calm and seemed to want our help.

“He had a really hard time cutting through the net. So, I asked the trip guests to jump in and help and they held on to the turtle so the guide could focus on cutting the ropes.

“She kept calm and didn’t make it any more difficult for us than it could have been. Even so, it took almost 40 minutes to get her free.

“Once she was free, our guide checked her over to see there was no netting left or that she had any injuries.

“She then swam off and it was an amazing feeling to help this animal.”