Breast Implants as Body Armor
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In manufacturing, there is the Law of Unintended Uses.
That means people find uses for products the manufacturers completely missed. Any New Yorker knows right how valuable kitty litter is for getting a grip on icy sidewalks.
The latest law of unintended uses? Breast implants as body armor.
Back in 2006, Israel was undergoing rocket attacks. Emergency surgeons at Nahariya Hospital reported they found shrapnel from an exploded rocked imbedded in the silicone breast implants of a 24-year-old. “The fragments were just inches from her heart so the implants saved her life,” said a spokesman. (Read a blog about shrapnel-catching breast implants.)
Our take: silicone is very thick, most shrapnel fragments are jagged but flat and don’t penetrate the body very deeply. Mostly likely true.
Another instance happened in Bulgaria, also in 2006, when a woman had a head on collision with another car. A policeman reported her double D implants absorbed most of the impact, protecting the driver’s ribs and vital organs.
Our take: Probably true. (We sure wish a doctor had backed up the police report.) Read the breast implants as airbags story.
The most current implant-as-body-armor instance happened when an L.A. woman was shot point blank by a crazed gunman who attacked a dental office where his wife was working. Another victim was shot in the arm and then played dead. But the gunman allegedly aimed directly at her heart and fired. A cosmetic surgeon later reported the implants saved the woman’s life.
Our take: it probably did not happen like that. Most assault rifles fire a high velocity bullet that, at close range, would zip through any implant, through the victim and then into and through yet another person.
What probably happened: The hospital spokesman where the victim was treated reported spotting bullet fragments only millimeters from her heart in a CT scan. So she was probably hit by a ricochet bullet that had lost most of its energy. Or the bullet struck the victim’s necklace and broke up. (Read the size D Implants article.)
Nonetheless, she should consider herself very, very lucky.
Adding to her luck was a kindly Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon who offered to do for no, or low, fees a reconstructive surgery when the victim healed.
Morale? Nobody should ever get saline implants or silicone implants with the idea of acquiring an internal bulletproof vest!
admin @ March 3, 2010
