An unusual cause of chest pain.

Flail chest is an uncommon condition that generally arises due to a significant impact to the chest, resulting in multiple fractures of the anterior and posterior ribs. This force may be much less if the bones are weakened for any reason, in osteoporosis or myeloma for instance. We describe a case of flail segment that arose secondary to a large sternal abscess resulting from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia.