A Woman's Breast Implant Bounced Away a Bullet & Saved Her Life

Here is an exciting story: a woman who got shot in the chest in 2018 ended up sustaining only minor injuries thanks to her breast implants, one of which bounced the bullet away from her lungs and heart. [Side note: when I told my new roommate this story, he said, “Bulletproof chest.” I’m afraid he will now have to find a new home.]

CNN says that a medical journal published a report last week detailing this fortuitous breast implant, which spared the life of a 30-year-old woman in Toronto in 2018. Though she was shot in the chest at close range, the bullet missed her major organs, ricocheting off her silicone implant and fracturing her rib instead.

“The implant caused the change in the trajectory of the bullet,” one of her surgeons, Giancarlo McEvenue, told CNN. “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.”

Granted, breast implants are not generally lifesaving tools, and silicone implants in particular have been linked to some significant health concerns. On the other hand, a silicone implant once reportedly spared a woman from getting stabbed to death a few years ago, so take from that what you will.