A Close Call: An Impacted Knife Injury to the Thorax

A 21-year-old woman with a history of psychiatric treatment was admitted to the emergency department with self-inflicted stab wounds to the neck, chest, and abdomen as the result of a suicide attempt. Inspection showed a seemingly superficial cut at the jugular fossa. The patient's mother stated that one long ceramic kitchen bread knife was totally embedded in the right thorax. Further diagnostic measures showed the missing kitchen bread knife penetrating the right chest, with the path of insertion starting 2 cm above the right clavicle and the blade in contact with the right hilum and ending next to the seventh thoracic vertebra. Retrieval the object was a challenging problem.