Recovery from alpha coma after decompression sickness complicated by spinal cord lesions at cervical and midthoracic levels.

A modified alpha pattern activity occurred in the EEG of a 21-year-old man during recovery from a diving injury. It persisted for 10 days but finally the EEG became normal. There was clinical and neurophysiological evidence of additional separate lesions in the cervical and mid-thoracic spinal cord. The latter resulted in spastic paraplegia but the patient made an otherwise good recovery.