A Rare Case Report of Flexion Teardrop Cervical Fracture with Blunt Vertebral Artery Injury Leading to Stroke

Non penetrating trauma to vertebral artery is a known complication in craniovertebral trauma. They are mainly reported with facet dislocations or injuries involving the foramen transversarium. Such a type of injury is rarely seen with flexion injuries. We report such a case leading to cerebellar stroke in a young male presenting to us with hemiparesis. A 43-year-old male presented to us 1 month post trauma after a motor vehicular accident with complaint of weakness of right half of the body since the trauma. He suffered blunt trauma to head and neck and complained of a flail right upper limb since trauma and weakness of the right lower limb which had partly improved. He was conservatively managed elsewhere. Radiographic investigations revealed complete occlusion of the right vertebral injury above the level of 6(th) cervical vertebra and flexion teardrop fracture of 5(th) cervical vertebra. He was managed conservatively for the vertebral artery injury (VAI) and corpectomy of C5 vertebra with anterior cervical plating and fusion. Such a rare type of injury can present with unexplained neurodeficit which needs appropriate radiological investigations for diagnosis before ascribing the cause to cord trauma. Hence, all high velocity motor vehicular accidents with associated fractures and neurodeficit should be screened for blunt VAIs.