Left ventricle
Right ventricle
Pericardial fluid
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An advanced cardiology model of pericardial effusion tightening around a beating heart. Filling the pericardial sac pushes you along a nonlinear pressure–volume curve — flat while the sac's reserve volume absorbs fluid, then steep once it runs out — and a rapid effusion runs out of reserve far sooner than a slow, chronic one, matching the real clinical teaching point about why trauma tamponades on far less fluid than a malignant effusion. As pericardial pressure climbs, ventricular interdependence makes each inspiration steal left-ventricular filling for the right ventricle, dragging systolic pressure down on every breath — the live arterial trace and the pulsus paradoxus readout track exactly how far that respirophasic dip has grown, with an urgent pericardiocentesis control to drain the sac and watch the hemodynamics recover.