Over the past decade, smartphones have come a long way: they now come in waterproof, scratchproof and even shatterproof models. Samsung, though, may want to add bulletproof to their phones' list of features after a Chinese man survived being shot when his Galaxy Mega 6.3 took the bullet for him.
That's right: forget body armor. It turns out that smartphones can stop bullets and save lives, specifically if they're placed in a chest pocket. In this case, the Galaxy Mega 6.3 blocked a bullet from entering the man's heart.
Originally reported on the Chinese website Apple Daily, the altercation happened on a street just outside a restaurant in China. An argument happened when one man dropped his wallet, and another picked it up and joked about using it to buy liquor. The joke wasn't taken lightly, though, and the first man pulled out a gun and fired it straight at the other man's chest.
The second man might have died, but his 6.3 inch-wide Samsung Galaxy Mega phone acted as a shield and stopped the bullet. Although the phone's other features are impressive (dual-core 1.7 GHz processor, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, 8-megapixel camera and 3,200 mAh battery), its ability to stop bullets may now be its best selling point.
Of course, this story has another weird angle. The shooting victim didn't come to the fight unarmed. He was carrying a sickle (a type of farming tool), but that didn't prevent him from being shot. Apparently, a sickle is no match for a gun, but the main question here is, why was he carrying around a sickle in public?
After being taken to a local hospital, medical professionals determined that the phone didn't do all the work in saving the man's life. The gun used wasn't a powerful one and the bullet went through the man's hand, which he held up during the altercation, before it hit the phone. However, had the phone not been in his pocket, the bullet would have continued into his body, so it's safe to assume the phone still saved his life.
This isn't the first instance of a smartphone stopping a bullet. In 2012, an iPhone saved the life of a man in the Netherlands in a similar incident. In that circumstance, though, the bullet still went through the phone and entered the man's chest, but the phone successfully slowed it down decreasing the amount of damage caused.
Luddites and critics (Louis C.K, anyone?) may argue that our society is too addicted to our smartphones but its potential lifesaving properties may be a good enough reason to lay that arguement to rest.
