An Atypical Case of Taravana Syndrome in Mediterraneo

Abstract

Dysbaric accidents are usually referred to compressed air-supplied diving. Nonetheless, diving accidents are known to have occurred among breath-hold divers also and some cases are reported in medical literature. A male professional breath hold diver (57 year old) presented neurological disorders as dizziness, sensory numbness, blurred vision and left phronto-parietal pain after many dives to a 30-35 meters seawater depth. He went home after the regression of the symptoms and runned 8 Km the following morning. Pain, sensory numbness and dizziness occurred after running. He went by himself to the hospital where he had a grand mal seizure and lost consciousness. A magnetic resonance imaging of the brain disclosed one cortical T1- weighted hypointensity in temporal region corresponding to infarction with partial hemorrhage. All clinical and radiological manifestations were likely to be referred to the very rare Taravana diving syndrome induced by repetitive prolonged deep breath-hold dives. The reappearance of signs after 17-hour free time make it thought as an atypical case.