Cerebral air embolism can sometimes be identified on brain CT,¹ and subsequent multiple infarcts can be observed on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI).² However, air itself on a T2-weighted gradient-echo image (GRE) has not been demonstrated.

A 77-year-old man was hospitalised for pneumonia. Eight days after admission, while sitting upright in bed, he suddenly became unresponsive after violent coughing with a central venous catheter disconnected. He also exhibited conjugate eye deviation to the left, quadriplegia, bilateral Babinski signs and subsequent generalised seizure. A brain CT and GRE …