An underwire bra complicated the treatment of a gunshot victim and nearly cost the woman her life, according to an unusual case report from B.C.
The doctors who helped save the woman’s life have published the report in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesiology as a warning that bra wires may play a role in other chest injuries.
The 39-year-old woman was brought to the Royal Columbian in New Westminster, B.C., with a gunshot wound to the chest in 2017. Despite her injury, she arrived awake and talking.
But she quickly worsened and doctors rushed her to the operating room. When they cut open her chest, they were shocked to see a wire pop up from deep inside the incision.
“It looked so weird,” said Dr. Laura Duggan, an anesthesiologist who co-authored the report with Dr. Martha DiGiuseppe.
“To open an abdomen and have a wire pop out at 90 degrees, it felt like we were on a Grey’s Anatomy episode,” Duggan told CTV News.
At first, doctors were worried the wire was part of some sort of explosive device. They cleared the operating room of non-essential staff.
Then the surgeon gently removed the wire. At first, the medical team was perplexed.
“We had no idea what it was. And then one of the nurses (said) that looks like an underwire!” Duggan said.
The medical team examined the woman’s clothing and, sure enough, her bra was missing an underwire.
The gunshot had propelled the wire into the woman’s chest and had sliced her stomach in half, cut her liver and lacerated her diaphragm.
“The underwire acted like a sword, it was almost surgical,” said Duggan.
Doctors decided to publish the unusual case after discussing the possibility that bra underwires may have been involved in other serious injuries, but never identified as a culprit. The other difficulty is that the thin wire wasn’t detected on X-ray.
The patient has since recovered, and the doctors have since issued alerts about wires in bras.
“I personally have never found them to be comfortable myself,” said Duggan.
