No Way! Way.
10 True Bra Stories

By Adam Welsch
Cupid Intimates

Ever thought that you’ve heard it all?  What follows is a collection of ten strange but true stories that have appeared in the news over the past decade, and all of them share one thing in common.  They all revolve around bras.

1.  No One Was on the Fence

Between December of 1999 and September of 2006, a fence adjacent to some New Zealand farm land was covered at various times with as many as 1500 bras.  The Cardrona Bra Fence, so named for the Cardrona Valley located southwest of Wanaka, New Zealand, was a controversial tourist attraction.  Many local inhabitants looked upon the fence as a lighthearted, quirky attention-getter; others thought it to be an embarrassment and a traffic hazard.  No one knows why the original four bras were hung on the fence in 1999, but by 2006 the local Council had had enough and ordered their removal.

2.  What a Lifesaver – Part I

In April of 2009, a Detroit woman’s life was saved when her bra deflected a bullet.  She was shot while witnessing the home invasion of neighbor.  Police said that a stray bullet ricocheted off of her bra’s underwire and injured her ribs.  She was taken to the hospital, but her injuries weren’t considered serious.

3.  What a Lifesaver – Part II

Amazingly, just one week earlier in April of 2009, another woman’s life was saved when a roll of money she was carrying inside one of her bra cups absorbed most of a bullet’s impact.  Ivonete Pereira, 58, was riding a bus in the Brazilian state of Bahia when she was shot by one of two men trying to rob the bus’s passengers.  The bullet did enter her body, but the roll of 150 reals (about 68 US dollars) was large enough to slow it down.  Apparently, buses in the region were frequently targeted for robberies at the time, prompting the woman to tuck her money away in a safe place.

4. What a Lifesaver – Part III

While bras can function as makeshift bullet-proof vests, they can save lives in other ways too.  In June of 2008, an American hiker, who became stranded in the Bavarian Alps, was saved after she used her sports bra to signal for help.  Jessica Bruinsma, 24, had fallen off a trail onto a rocky ledge and was stranded for almost three days.  Despite suffering a dislocated shoulder, she was able to attach her blue bra to a cable used to move timber down the mountain.  Lumberjacks spotted it and, having heard the reports of a missing hiker, alerted authorities.  Rescuers used a helicopter to follow the cable up the mountain and locate the injured hiker.

5. Winner of the Booby Prize

In October of 2009, Ukrainian cardiologist Dr. Elena Bodnar, a survivor of the Chernobyl disaster, won the Ig Nobel Prize for Public Health for her invention of a bra that converts into two gas masks.  The bra’s two cups function as filtration devices that, in theory, could be used by women if suddenly confronted with a biological or chemical terrorist attack.  The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded by the scientific humor magazine, Annals of Improbable Research, at Harvard University each year to honor achievements “that first make people laugh and then make them think.”

6.  Now That’s a Drug Bust

Just last month, a woman in Memphis called police after she discovered her son stealing her prescription medication, Xanax, from one of her bras.  She’d been hiding it there for fear that he might try to take it.  Police caught the 28-year-old man hiding under his neighbor’s SUV.

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7.  Bras and Verte-Bras

Back in October of 2006, a teenager, who put her bra on the antenna of the car in which she was riding, was charged by police with littering after it flew off and caused an accident that injured two men.  The men were driving the car behind the teenager and her friend on Interstate 75 when they had to swerve to avoid the bra.  Their car flipped over, resulting in a broken vertebra for the driver and several broken ribs for his passenger.

8.  She Should’ve Just Used Tissues

Former Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson pleaded guilty last week in federal court to eight counts of attempted extortion.  Wilkerson was first arrested in October of 2008 after being captured on an FBI surveillance video stuffing bribe money into her bra.  The former State Senator was accused of accepting more than $23,000 in bribes to help secure a liquor license for a nightclub and help an undercover agent, posing as a businessman, develop some land owned by the state.  She could spend up to four years in prison.

9.  Bra Wings and Bat Wings

In July of 2008, a British hotel receptionist discovered a baby bat resting inside a cup of a bra she was wearing!  The woman at first thought her bra’s movement was caused by her vibrating cell phone (another story in, and of, itself).  Abbie Hawkins, 19, said that she had been wearing the 34FF for five hours before determining the cause of the strange sensations.  It appears that the bat had come to rest in the bra the day before when the garment was hanging on a clothesline to dry.

10. Well, It Could Be Used As a Slingshot

In October of 2007, U.S. Marshals Service employees prevented a woman from entering a federal courthouse in Idaho until she removed her underwire bra that had set off a metal detector.  Though she did eventually remove it, the woman claimed that circumstances forced her to remove it while she stood at the checkpoint, shielded only by her husband’s coat; the Marshals Service disputed that story, saying they suggested she remove it in her car or a restaurant.  No word on whether the Marshals Service agreed to apologize to the woman.