A 50-year-old man presents several clinical signs of pulmonary embolism, but this diagnosis was excluded due to the lack of venous thrombosis of the lower limbs and because the presence of a vena cava filter. The same signs reoccurred a few months later, leading to the diagnosis of venous thrombosis of the lower limbs with severe successive pulmonary embolism. This clinical case illustrates the potentially incomplete efficacy of vena cava filters for the prevention of pulmonary embolism.