Transfixion of the Heart by Embedded Ice Pick Blade with Eight Months' Survival

Abstract

A case is presented of a 24 year old Puerto Rican man whose heart was transfixed by the anterior end of an ice pick blade, with the posterior end of the blade fixed in the body of the sixth doisal vertebra. The patient survived for eight months. Roentgenologically, the patient presented a problem in determination of the path of the foreign body. At autopsy, vegetations were found in the heart on the perforated mitral valve; these were the source of multiple embolizations.