Las Vegas Plastic Surgery: Jeffrey J. Roth M.D. F.A.C.S.
Las Vegas Plastic Surgery

By Dr. Jeffrey Roth

Paintball Ruptures Breast Implant in Britain

A recent plastic surgery related story out of Great Britain documents the strange case of a paintball causing the rupture of a breast implant. Recently a 26-year-old woman was hit in the breast with a paintball at a paintball park in South London. Following playing paintball, the British woman simply thought she had a bruise on her chest. She later went to visit a doctor and discovered she had a ruptured breast implant. Minor injuries from paintballs are common as they travel at speeds of up to 190 miles per hour and often leave bruises on impact, but this implant injury is the first of its kind.

A spokesman for UK Paintball, the company who runs the Paintzone Paintball Park where the accident occurred,  stated, “Part of the fun of paintball is that it hurts a bit when you get shot but in all the years we’ve been going we’ve never seen an incident like this. It came as a real surprise to hear that a woman had her breast implant burst at one of our centers.”

The paintball spokesman said women with breast implants will receive extra chest padding to prevent similar injuries in the future.

The article also quoted Dr. Douglas McGeorge, the former president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. He stated, “This is very, very unusual and this woman was very unlucky. I imagine she was quite slim because the paintball would have had to pierce the skin to rupture the breast implant. I have heard some odd stories over the years but this is one of the strangest. And it could prove very costly. She could have to pay up to £3,000, (roughly $5,000 USD) to get the implant replaced.”

Breast Implants are designed to be sturdy devices. They are supposed to be able to take 25 times the force of a mammography machine squeeze. There are videos of breast implants being run over in the street by cars and remaining intact. Several factors could have caused this injury; placement of the implant above the pectoralis muscle, thin soft tissue around the implant, or just very unlucky shot placement.

As with any other physical endeavor, paintball can present some risks. Women and men who have received plastic or cosmetic surgery should always wear the proper equipment to protect their bodies. In the case of paintball, eye protection and adequate padding are very important. Paintball poses added physical risk because it involves a fast moving object.

Regardless of the sport or pastime, women with breast implants always need to take care to make sure their bodies are adequately protected. Hopefully women with breast implants who enjoy paintball can learn from this mishap and take the appropriate measures to decrease the chance of this type of injury ever occurring again.

Jeffrey J. Roth, M.D., F.A.C.S.

Las Vegas Plastic Surgery

(702) 450-0777

www.jjrothmd.com

Reference:
The Sun

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