Flail Chest
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I understood that much from my cursory search. That’s why I wrote “very serious business” and being that in your years of practice, you never encountered one tells me it demands much more specialized professional and timely medical attention than a regular cracked or bruised rib.
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@Axtremus said in Flail Chest:
The rib cage broken?
Yes. With ribs broken in two separate locations, there's no support and when inspiration occurs, the "flail" segment moves into the chest rather than expanding with the rest of the chest wall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flail_chest
Flail chest is a life-threatening medical condition that occurs when a segment of the rib cage breaks due to trauma and becomes detached from the rest of the chest wall. Two of the symptoms of flail chest are chest pain and shortness of breath.[1]
It occurs when multiple adjacent ribs are broken in multiple places, separating a segment, so a part of the chest wall moves independently. The number of ribs that must be broken varies by differing definitions: some sources say at least two adjacent ribs are broken in at least two places,[2] some require three or more ribs in two or more places.[3] The flail segment moves in the opposite direction to the rest of the chest wall: because of the ambient pressure in comparison to the pressure inside the lungs, it goes in while the rest of the chest is moving out, and vice versa. This so-called "paradoxical breathing"[4] is painful and increases the work involved in breathing.
