Posttraumatic Cardiac Contrecoup

Abstract

A 33-year-old previously healthy man, victim of a motorcycle accident, had been violently ejected from the vehicle falling to the ground on his right-hand side. At admission he was conscious, hemodynamically stable, and without skin wounds. Chest x-ray examination performed immediately after the accident at a district hospital revealed a fracture of the sixth right rib; ECG showed repolarisation abnormalities with T-wave inversion in inferior and lateral leads (Figure 1). Cardiac enzymes were negative at admission, but an increase in Troponin I was noted in the following 4 hours (peak 3.19 ng/mL at 12 hours). Figure 1. ECG repolarization abnormalities with T-wave inversion in inferior …