J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  2004 Dec;15(6):639-642.

Cardiac Tamponade from Chest Trauma During Snowboarding

• Seo JY
• Ahn ME
• Ahn HC
• Chung JB
• Kim SE
• Choi GH
• Bae JH
• Choi GM
• Kim HS
• Cho JH
• Park CW
• Ok TG
• You KC

Abstract

As snowboarding has become one of the most popular winter sports, lots of young people enjoy it and they have become the center of this winter sports. However, this increased number of snowboarding lovers results in raising the number of injuries. In the case of severe chest injury caused by snowboarding can be a source of a serious injury such as cardiac tamponade. The development of cardiac tamponade is an acute, life-threatening emergency. To test a cardiac tamponade, a patient with chest trauma should be diagnosed from the information given by a physical examination and simple chest radiography. If the heart is doubted to be wounded, an emergency echocardiography has to be executed. An emergency treatment for the cardiac tamponade patient is to normal saline infusion quickly to augment the capacity of a blood vessel. Extremely, surgeries such as pericardiocentesis or pericardiotomy can be applied to ease the pressure inside the heart. Some patients with chest blunt trauma while snowboarding developed cardiac tamponade and they were successfully recovered through pericardiocentesis. This precedent is reported here with the consideration of the references.

Keyword

Chest Injuries; Cardiac tamponade; Snowboarding

MeSH Terms

Blood Vessels
Cardiac Tamponade*
Echocardiography
Emergencies
Emergency Treatment
Heart
Humans
Pericardiectomy
Pericardiocentesis
Physical Examination
Radiography
Skiing*
Sports
Thoracic Injuries
Thorax*
Wounds and Injuries