[Closed intrathoracic injury with internal heart rupture and intact bony cage].

A case of a blunt heart trauma in a 21 year-old man (driver) is reported. The man died in a motor-vehicle accident where he sustained aortic valve rupture and a number of non-cardiac injuries including life-threatening ones (hip fracture and left-hand side hemopneumothorax). His ribs remained intact. The fatal outcome was due to tears of papillary muscles in the left and right ventricles and rupture of the right atrial wall that resulted in microthromboembolization of brain vessels.