When emergency room doctors at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital went to check the heart rate of a 48-year-old man involved in a motorcycle crash, they couldn't find it. One CAT scan and an X-ray later, and the problem was clear: his heart had moved 90 degrees to the right.

Needless to say, not good. And it's also rare. But surprisingly, it's not the crash that caused his heart to move to the other side of his body – it was air.

During the crash the rider broke several ribs, puncturing his lungs and releasing air into his chest. That pressure caused his heart to shift and move over, but once doctors released the air, his heart slid back into place.


"What's unique about this case is the way the heart rotated so far in the other direction," Dr. Gregory Fontana of Lenox Hill told Live Science. "And the patient was still awake and alert."