RUPTURE or transection of the cervical trachea or esophagus, or both, may result following localized blunt trauma to the upper anterior chest and neck. That this is a rare and unusual injury is attested to by the paucity of such reports in the literature.
Zeuch1 summarizes 54 cases of tracheal rupture prior to 1922. Only one of these was noted to be a complete transection. No mention was made of any concomitant esophageal injury. Dysart2 again stressed how unusual this injury was. In a summary of the literature from 1939 through 1949 he reported a case similar to the present one of a 15-year-old boy hit in the neck by a chain while riding a motorcycle. The trachea was severed just below the cricoid cartilage. Having survived the injury, the patient was ultimately left with an adequate airway but paralysis of both vocal cords.
Since that time a