TV stunt star dies after beach rescue

Lynette Coulter, 52, died last week. Photo / Supplied

A former television stuntwoman, whom rescuers spent 25 minutes reviving after a near-drowning on New Year's Day, has died after she was sent home from hospital.

The family of Lynette Coulter - who once worked on Neighbours and Home and Away - are devastated, demanding an explanation from Northland District Health Board before they decide whether to lay a complaint with the Health and Disability Commissioner.

They cannot understand how the fit, healthy, former TV stuntwoman could have so inexplicably lost her life, and are asking whether ongoing clinical observation in Whangarei Hospital could have spotted the deterioration in her condition.

Coulter got into trouble in the water at Tapuaetahi beach, near Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands, early in the afternoon of New Year's Day.

Her brother Craig Coulter said members of the public, including an off-duty fireman and a local doctor, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for 25 minutes to revive Lynette before the ambulance arrived.

She was admitted to Whangarei Hospital's intensive care unit.

Craig said the family was told by a doctor that she would be in hospital for a few days.

"He mentioned that she was not out of the woods yet and she needed to be monitored for the next three to four days."

Craig visited his sister on the morning of January 2.

She was lucid and talking but complaining of a sore neck and chest from the CPR.

At 1.30am on January 3 Coulter was moved out of ICU and on to a ward.

Craig said she was discharged later that day from Whangarei Hospital, to the surprise of her family.

"They released her after talking about the risk factors of a near drowning."

A friend took her to her mother's Kerikeri home.

"My sister looked radiant and and was smiling. It gave Mum a chance to see her in a positive light. It was in the next couple of days that things started to slide down."

Craig said that by Tuesday his sister was starting to get delirious. "It just crept up on her - for a good 36 hours she was fine.

"The chain of events was now gathering momentum and it couldn't be stopped from then on."

Her flatmate took Coulter to Kawakawa Hospital, but she was then transferred to Whangarei Hospital.

She was put into an induced coma and transferred to the critical care unit at Auckland City Hospital.

"She was in intensive care one day and released the next. If she was in hospital it's likely their monitoring would have picked up that she was getting sick," said Craig.

He said he realised the seriousness of the situation on Friday, January 8, a week to the day after his sister had survived the drowning.

Waiting to meet his mother, Joyce, at Auckland Airport, he was stunned to see her escorted out of the domestic terminal by two policemen. They had been sent by Auckland City Hospital to find her and urgently obtain her consent to operate on Coulter's heart.

Later that day the doctor called to say the family should be at her bedside. "He said she was slipping away."

On January 9, the family made the agonising decision to switch of Coulter's life support. She passed away with her family at her side, aged 52.

Both Northland and Auckland DHBs declined to comment on the case as it has been referred to the coroner for investigation.

Craig said the family's main concern is avoiding another family going through the same terrible tragedy.

Craig said his sister lived an interesting life that included 26 years living in Australia, where she sold real estate but also worked as an extra and a stuntwoman on television soaps Neighbours and Home and Away.

She returned home to New Zealand nine years ago and had been living in Kerikeri.