Acute Paraplegia during Weightlifting: An Unusual Vascular Catastrophe

W hile weightlifting, a 58-year-old man developed sudden-onset, tearing chest pain, rapidly followed by the inability to move his legs. His medical history included the repair of a traumatic descending aortic laceration 30 years earlier. Physical examination was notable for unequal blood pressures (240/97 mmHg in the left arm and 164/87 mmHg in the right), absent femoral pulses, mottled lower extremities, and loss of motor and sensory function below the T6 spinal level.