One person died and four others were taken to hospital suffering from the bends after an accident at a diving centre yesterday.

The RAF were drafted in to deal with the emergency at the National Diving Centre in Stoney Cove, Leicestershire, shortly before 10am.

The divers were part of a dive school from Derbyshire who were training at the flooded quarry when one got into difficulty.

His companions suffered decompression sickness when they rushed the sick diver to the surface to raise the alarm.

The distressed diver, who has not been named, was pronounced dead a short time later at the Leicester Royal Infirmary.

His colleagues were flown to a hospital in Merseyside in an RAF Sea King, deployed from RAF Valley in Anglesey, north Wales, where they were being treated in a recompression chamber last night. Their condition is not thought to be life-threatening.

A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said they were not treating the incident as suspicious and will be preparing a file for the coroner.

Margaret Baldwin, operations manager for the company, said the group involved in the incident were not being supervised by the centre when they got into trouble.

In a statement the centre said: "This morning a group of qualified divers, led by instructors from a Derbyshire dive school, were taking part in a training programme designed to further develop their deep diving skills.

"They were not under the instruction or supervision of Stoney Cove.

"In bringing the distressed diver to the surface, four divers in the group ascended faster than normal and as a result have been taken to a recompression chamber for treatment.

"Tragically, the diver who got into distress was pronounced dead at the Leicester Royal Infirmary." ..SUPL: