This is a case report of a 52-year-old woman with acute respiratory distress who shortly after admission to the intensive care unit developed flaccid tetraparesis with areflexia and elevated serum creatine kinase concentration. Typical clinical presentation, clinical neurophysiological examination and histology confirmed the presence of a necrotizing severe myopathy known as "myopathy with thick fibre loss", a serious but also most often spontaneously reversible condition.