TikToker says shapewear stemmed bleeding after shooting
Getty ImagesA TikToker has said shapewear helped stem bleeding after she was shot.
Angelina Wiley says she was wearing a Skims bodysuit when she was wounded on New Years Eve in Kansas City in the US.
The 22-year-old has been sharing her recovery on TikTok and said the pants were "so tight it literally kept me from bleeding out".
While a doctor has said you shouldn't rely on shapewear to protect against injuries, he's said it could've helped.
'Direct compression'
When someone gets a cut or a wound, "the first major piece of management you do is apply direct compression", Dr Gary Bartlett, who has worked in A&E, told BBC Newsbeat.
He says the bodysuit likely acted as a compression to stem the bleeding.
In a series of TikToks, Angelina shared how she had been at a club with some friends and decided to get some food while they waited for a cab home at about 01:30.
"As we were crossing the street, there were some guys fighting in the street," she says. "A guy in a ski mask comes up and he's just like pop pop pop pop."
At the time, local media reported she suffered a ruptured bladder and a cracked pelvis in the shooting.
'Body armour'
Angelina believes "the way my stomach fat was pushed" by the shapewear meant the bullet "hit the fattier part instead".
"If I wasn't wearing it, it would have hit different," she says.
Angelina added that her shapewear was "like body armour for women".
The fact that the shapewear was designed to sculpt fattier areas of the body could also have played a significant role, according to Dr Bartlett.
"If you've got something pushing those [fat] layers under the skin onto the wound or onto the blood vessels, that will give you some added compression," he says.
Getty ImagesKim Kardashian launched her underwear and loungewear line in 2019 and its success saw her added to the Forbes billionaire list two years later.
The brand's sculpting bodysuits are advertised as having "extra compression at the core and waist".
Kim herself shared Angelina's TikTok to her 362 million Instagram followers on her story.
It's not the first time tight clothing has been credited with helping a woman escape injury.
In 2015, Zoe Turner from Wakefield was in a serious car crash involving a cement truck when she was 21.
The dress she was wearing for the Christmas party she attended was "really tight", she told the BBC at the time.
"It was difficult to walk up and down stairs," she said.
"When they cut the dress off, they put a brace around my pelvis and the trauma doctor said the dress acted like this brace," she said.
"It kept all my breaks together and stopped it being any worse."
But Dr Bartlett adds people should "absolutely not" rely on tight clothing to protect against serious injuries.
"But we know that if it does provide some compression of some sort then that's probably helped," he says.
"Some compression is better than no compression when you have a bleeding wound."
BBC Newsbeat has contacted Skims for comment.
