A diver who had just finished three straight days of diving arrived at the hospital with chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea, and abnormal sensations across his body, arms, and legs. That combination points straight toward decompression sickness, the condition divers call the bends.
It wasn't the bends. According to a case report in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine, published Sept. 30, 2026, the man's illness was ultimately caused by ciguatera, a type of food poisoning from toxins in certain fish. The report's author, Robert A. van Hulst of the Department of Hyperbaric Medicine and Anesthesiology at the Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, uses the case to show how closely a seafood toxin can imitate a diving emergency.
