Breast implants can lessen gunshot injuries by slowing bullets, says study

A study published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences has demonstrated that breast implants provide some protection against gunshots, by altering the speed and shape of bullets as they hit the body. 

The study was carried out by Christopher Pannucci, a plastic surgeon at the University of Utah, and his colleagues. The experiment was inspired by a case in which Pannucci treated a woman with breast implants who survived a close-range gunshot. They analysed bullets shot through breast implants into ballistics gel – a substance designed to mimic human tissue. 

They used a handgun to fire shots at 300 metres per second into blocks of ballistics gel 2.5 metres away. When these blocks were placed underneath large saline breast implants, the distance the bullets travelled into the gel was reduced by an average of eight centimetres, or 20%. Analysing the gel showed that the implants seemed to make the bullets become flatter and wider, increasing their drag force and slowing them down. 

This decelerating effect could mean the difference between life and death in some cases, they claimed.