Experts who examined the patient believe that the change in bullet’s direction was possible due to her breast implants.
As per ScienceAlert, study revealed that the bullet entered from the left side of the victim’s chest and didn’t go through her back and possibly through her heart, however, the bullet was deflected to her right side where it became lodged behind her breast.
The horrific but ultimately non-fatal incident took place in Ontario, Canada. Shooter remains unidentified and the firearm isn’t recovered.
But what is known, is that a 30-year-old woman with breast implants sustained severe chest trauma after being stuck by a bullet in public at night.
Giancarlo McEvenue, a plastic surgeon who is leading the research team explained “The patient-reported walking down[the] street and feeling heat and pain in her left chest, looking down and seeing blood.” “On the left hand side is the heart and lungs — if the bullet would have gone into the chest, she would have had a much more serious, possibly life-threatening injury,” McEvenue added.
Experts who examined the patient believe the change in bullet’s direction was possible due to her breast implants.
The study noted “This trajectory change could only have been due to the bullet hitting the implant in our patient’s case, as the bullet did not hit bone on the left side[as evidenced by lack of left sided fracture and a bullet that retained enough energy to cause right-sided fractures].” The deflection occurred within the implant likely at the point when the bullet pressed again and ultimately ruptured the implant’s membrane.
X-ray scans confirmed that the bullet was shot at close range and the bullet still inside the patient’s body, in the right lateral thoracic wall, while it also fractured a rib.
CT scans revealed damage to lung tissue but no major injury, although signs of debris and air indicated both breast implants had been struck by the bullet. The bullet was not only deflected tearing through her heart but also had then lodged in her right side where it couldn’t exit through her back, which would likely has been fatal.
“This implant overlies the heart and intrathoracic cavity and therefore likely save the women’s life,”
Giancarlo McEvenue led team performed surgery on the patient to remove both implants and the projectile which turned out to be a copper-jacketed 0.40 caliber bullet. The bullet was handed over to the police.
The woman was in stable condition after the life threatening incident and did not suffer any additional injuries except minor damage to her lung tissue and minor wound in her upper left breast.
The incident happened when the 30-year-old was walking down a street, doctors said she started to feel “heat and pain” on the left side of her chest and when she saw blood coming out of her left side, she rushed to the nearest emergency room.
A 30-year-old was later transferred at a hospital’s trauma center where doctors found a mass behind her breast that turned out to be a bullet.
“Interestingly, despite the millions of women with breast implants and the thousands of women affected by gun violence worldwide, ruptured implants after firearm injury is a rarely reported phenomenon in the literature, with only several case reports having been described previously.”
However, this is not the first case, the team found at least two other cases in medical literature where ruptured breast implants are thought to have played a role in saving patient’s life after they were struck by bullets.
“Breast Implants can save lives!” McEvenue posted on Facebook where he shared his team’s findings.
