A woman's life was saved after a bullet hit a silicone breast implant
'Something in a breast pocket stopping a bullet' is not just something you see in movies, but it has been
Life-Saving Silicone Breast Implant After Firearm Injury: Case Report and Treatment Recommendations - Giancarlo McEvenue, Anastasia Oikonomou, Noah Ditkofsky, Joan Lipa, 2020
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2513826X19898821
Woman's Breast Implant Saved Her Life by Deflecting a Bullet, Case Study Shows
https://www.sciencealert.com/woman-s-life-saved-after-her-breast-implant-deflects-bullet-study-suggests
This incident occurred in Ontario, Canada. The details of the incident are unknown as the perpetrator has not been found, but the victim herself testified that 'I was walking down the street when I felt heat and pain in my left breast and saw blood flowing, so I went to the emergency hospital on my own.' A clinical examination at the emergency hospital confirmed a bullet hole above the left nipple.
The skin around the hole was burned, suggesting that it had been caused by a muzzle flash, i.e. that the bullet had been fired at close range. Palpation also confirmed the presence of a bullet-like mass under the skin on the right side of the chest, opposite the left side where the bullet hole had been.
Below is an X-ray of the victim's chest. It is clear that the shadow on the right side of the chest is the bullet itself. Since a gas-like trail was left from the bullet hole in the left chest to the right chest, it was presumed that the bullet entered through the upper left nipple, was deflected by the silicone resin, passed through the body, and stopped in the right chest. The X-ray also revealed that the ribs were fractured and there was a pulmonary contusion , but there was no damage to the chest cavity.
During surgery, the silicone resin was removed from both breasts and the bullet was extracted. Below is the silicone resin on the right side of the chest. The bullet mark remains. According to police investigation, the bullet was a 40 caliber bullet with a copper jacket.
After the operation was successful, the team analyzed how the bullet passed through the silicone resin in the chest based on CT scans and clinical evidence. The results showed that if the silicone resin in the left chest had not deflected the bullet, it would have passed directly through the chest wall and hit the heart. The team said that the fact that the left sternum was not fractured, but the right sternum was fractured, suggests that the bullet had sufficient energy at the time of impact, and that the change in trajectory could only be due to the bullet hitting the implant.
A study on the effect of breast implants on bullets was conducted in 2017 and concluded that 'silicone resin shortens the distance a bullet can penetrate by about 20%.' According to a survey by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than 290,000 women underwent breast augmentation surgery in 2016, so the research team pointed out that millions of women in the United States may have silicone resin embedded in their breasts. Given the high rate of gun crime in the United States, the research team thought that there may be many cases of 'bullets hitting silicone resin,' but only two similar cases had been reported prior to this incident.
Dr Giancarlo McEvenue, who reported the case, commented: 'The patient suffered only minor trauma and made a full recovery. It's an unfortunate story, but it has a happy ending.'
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