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now, I have no medical training, but for what it's worth both my older brothers (one is a paramedic, the other in med school) like to show me pictures of medical problems, especially sample xrays and CAT scans. One, I do not recall which, has shown me pictures of various aortic dissections. Now, in the picture above, I think the line that the red arrow points at is the intima, meaning that the entire lower left third of the aorta in the pic is false lumen. Is my interpretation correct? Because if so, whoa! That's waaaaayyy larger than any dissection my brothers have showed me a pic of (like, Good G-d!). when I first saw it and decided that's what it was I said Wloud 'I'm looking at death'. Please tell me I'm an amateur idiot (which would be redundant) and that I'm wrong. Because I hope for the sake of the patient I'm really way off. That's just frightening.

Please tell me I'm an amateur idiot (which would be redundant) and that I'm wrong. Because I hope for the sake of the patient I'm really way off. That's just frightening.

You called it right. The patient had a false lumen roughly 1/3 the volume of his aorta. Yeah, "frightening" about sums it up.