Exsanguination is one of the leading causes of death in a battlefield. Patients who require cardiopulmonary resuscitation after moribund trauma have an unfavorable prognosis.
The determinant of survival in critically injured is a time to surgical intervention. Resuscitative emergency thoracotomy may be the lifesaving treatment in selected patients with trunk trauma and cardiac arrest after hemorrhagic shock.
This is a case report of successfully applied resuscitative surgical techniques in severely injured allied soldier with hemorrhagic shock and cardiac arrest after suicide bomber explosion. A prompt diagnosis and a rapid emergency thoracotomy are lifesaving in moribund penetrating or blunt trunk trauma.