Image Diagnosis: Thoracic Epidural Hematoma from a Fall Requiring Emergent Decompressive Laminectomy and Hematoma Evacuation

A 40-year-old man with a history of morbid obesity, posttraumatic stress disorder, and opioid addiction was admitted with progressive back and leg pain after falling while getting out of the shower 3 days earlier. He initially presented to a community hospital, where a lumbar computed tomography scan came back negative. He was subsequently sent home. His pain continued to progress until he was unable to walk, at which point he presented to a satellite Emergency Department of a large tertiary hospital. Given his morbid obesity, the patient was transferred to the main hospital, where he was admitted and underwent a lumbar magnetic resonance imaging scan under general anesthesia that showed multilevel spondylosis without central canal or neuroforaminal stenosis