last-resort

米ニューヨーク市ブロンクスで1日に起きた旅客列車脱線事故で，運輸安全委員会（NTSB）が事故原因の調査を開始しました。以下はThe New York Timesの記事からの引用。
last-resortは文脈から推測できるように「最後の手段」という表現です。resort自体に「頼みの綱, （最後の）手段」（『プログレッシブ英和中辞典』小学館）という意味があり，last resortの形でしばしば用いられます。英英辞書でもlast resortでwhat you will do if everything else fails（LDOCE）と説明されていました。
事故の原因が機械の不具合なのか，あるいは人為的なものなのかは未だに不明ですが，いずれにしもこれ以上の死者が出ないことを願うばかりです。（Koyamamotmo）

Focus Turns to Investigation in Fatal Bronx Train Crash
The 5:54 from Poughkeepsie was rumbling through the Bronx on Sunday morning. Only 100 to 150 people were onboard — department store employees who were bracing for another busy after-Thanksgiving day, tourists from Texas who wanted to climb the Statue of Liberty, a police officer moonlighting as a security guard on his day off.
... Dumping the brakes, railroad experts said, is a last-resort move that has the effect of slamming on the emergency brakes on all the cars of a train at once. It is usually done to avert a collision with another train or a vehicle at a grade-level crossing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/nyregion/metro-north-derailment.html?ref=international-home