Penetrating thoracic spinal cord injury caused by a wooden fragment after a ground-level fall: A case report.

Penetrating spinal cord injuries caused by wooden foreign bodies are extremely rare, especially following a low-energy incident at home. We report a case of an older man in his 80s who developed complete paraplegia after a wooden fragment from a shoji screen impaled his back from a fall at ground level. Computed tomography scans showed a linear foreign object penetrating the posterior thorax and reaching the spinal canal at T10-11 and T11-12, without vascular damage. The patient was transferred to our hospital with the foreign body still in place. The fragment was carefully extracted in the emergency room with a surgical team on standby for urgent bleeding control. Post-removal imaging confirmed no foreign material remained. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed injury to the thoracic spinal cord, and the patient subsequently underwent surgical decompression and irrigation. Despite an uneventful postoperative period, no neurological improvement was observed. This case underscores that severe penetrating spinal cord injuries can occur even from low-energy domestic trauma and highlights the importance of prompt imaging and careful foreign body removal.