[Penetrating heart injuries in two butchers]

Two butchers, men aged 25 and 48 years, sustained a perforating heart injury when they made a vertical cut. They were rushed to hospital. The first patient was haemodynamically stable on arrival. The second had hypotension and cardiac ultrasonography revealed increased fluid in the pericardium; he was subjected to pericardiocentesis. The heart wounds in both patients were sutured via a left-sided anterolateral thoracotomy; the younger had a wound in the left ventricle, the older both a dorsal and a ventral transmural perforation of the right ventricle. Both patients could be discharged after a little over a week in good condition. Employers in abbattoirs should provide protective clothing fastening high enough to prevent heart wounds.