1st International Conference on Recent Advances in Anaesthesiology (INCRAA - 2009), 30 Jan – 01 Feb 2009 · Nehru Auditorium, AIIMS New Delhi

Anaesthetic Implications of penetrating chest trauma We present an unusual case of a patient who came to us with a penetrating chest injury. An iron angle, 5 feet long and 2.5 inches thick was impaled in his left chest wall at the level of the fifth to the eighth intercostal spaces, 2.5 cm from the midline, projecting in the anterior and posterior direction. The patient had to be wheeled in directly to the OR hence, the nature and extent of the injury was not known. No haematological, biochemical or radiology investigations could not be obtained. Further the inability to position the patient provided an additional challenge to the anaesthetist.