A patient's heart was moved to the right following a motorcycle accident. (Courtesy of the New England Journal of Medicine)

A 48-year-old man is lucky to be alive after being in a violent motorcycle accident that temporarily shifted his heart.

Italian doctors described the rare injury in the New England Journal of Medicine, writing that that the man was found to have broken ribs and a build-up of air in his chest cavity after the accident. But an X-ray and CT scan revealed a more alarming problem: the man's heart had shifted nearly 90 degrees in his chest.

Fortunately, the doctors were able to drain the air from the man's chest cavity - a move that allowed his heart to move back to its normal position within 24 hours.

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