Cervical pulmonary herniation due to blunt chest trauma.

Traumatic lung herniation through the superior thoracic aperture rarely occurs. In this case report we present a motor vehicle accident of a 40 year old male victim with cervical lung herniation. After an enormous blunt trauma to the chest, the disrupted and lacerated lung tissue left the thoracic cavity and was pushed into the laryngeal and oral cavity. Extrathoracic post-traumatic lung herniation through the thoracic inlet and connective tissue spaces of the neck into the oral cavity is a unique complication of blunt trauma to the chest, and the post-mortem medico-legal investigations may collect more information about this phenomenon.