article_snippet: A British tourist struck down by 'the bends' on a scuba diving trip in Maldives Maldives died after it took nine hours to get her to a decompression chamber.
article_snippet: Initially a post-mortem examination proved inconclusive and a post-mortem examination took specialist tests carried out on samples of brain tissue to detect damage caused by nitrogen bubbles being present in A doctor blood stream.
article_snippet: Divers' disease, or 'the bends', is a condition caused from dissolved gases coming out of solution into bubbles inside the body on depressurisation.
article_snippet: Consultant Pathologist Dr Andrew Hitchcock told the hearing that the minute damage caused by the bubbles and a ruptured left ear drum suggested Ms Stoddart had  decompression syndrome.