Efstratios Apostolakis
1, Nikolaos A Papakonstantinou
2* 
, Alexandra Liakopoulou
1, Serafeim Chlapoutakis
11 Cardiothoracic Surgery Department, University Hospital of Ioannina, School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece
2 Cardiac Surgery Department, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece
Abstract
Flail chest is a life-threatening clinical entity which can be complicated by respiratory insufficiency. Paradoxical motion of a part of chest wall is the basic cause to put the blame on. Consequently, stabilization of the chest wall is occasionally of paramount importance to achieve early extubation in a patient with post-trauma respiratory insufficiency. Hereby, a simple, low cost, harmless and effective approach of external stabilization is presented.