Fatal traumatic vertebral artery aneurysm rupture - Case report

The authors present the case of a 34-year-old man struck over the left mast oid region by a hockey puck, who suffered a fatal rupture of a left vertebr al artery berry aneurysm. He became apneic within seconds of the injury and had no brainstem reflex within minutes. The postmortem examination showed massive subarachnoid hemorrhage in the posterior fossa and the remnants of a berry aneurysm near the intradural origin of thr left vertebral artery, 1 1 mm proximal to the posterior inferior cerebellar artery. Rupture of a sac cular aneurysm as a result of head trauma is rare. This is the first report ed case of a posterior circulation aneurysm rupture as a result of head tra uma.