Updated June 04, 2017 14:44:53

Photo: The flight paramedic and doctor tend to the injured woman on a yacht about 500 metres from shore. (Supplied: RACQ CQ Rescue)

A British tourist has lost muscle and skin on her left leg after it became entangled in a rope on a yacht off the Queensland coast.

RACQ CQ Rescue helicopter were called to the 50-year-old woman's aid on Saturday afternoon just off Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays.

Air crewman Lee Jones-Fraser said they were originally told it had been an amputation.

"She got her leg caught in a rope and somehow that rope either moved or she got dragged across the guard rail where the higher-tension stainless steel wires are," Mr Jones-Fraser said.

Photo: The woman was brought back to the waiting helicopter on shore via a small boat. (Supplied: RACQ CQ Rescue)

"What happened were the muscles on her leg were degloved ... she had some pretty traumatic injuries in terms of muscle and tissue loss."

The helicopter's doctor and paramedics had to take a small boat from the beach to the yacht about 500 metres off shore.

Mr Jones-Fraser said once the woman was stabilised on the vessel she was brought back to the helicopter and flown to Mackay Base Hospital, arriving about 7:30pm.

Photo: The doctor and paramedic landed on Whitehaven Beach and took a small boat to the yacht. (Supplied: RACQ CQ Rescue)

"She was distressed because she was still in a lot of pain," he said.

Mr Jones-Fraser said it was the first time many of the crew had been confronted with such an incident.

Topics: accidents, disasters-and-accidents, whitsundays-4802, mackay-4740

First posted June 04, 2017 14:20:31