51 Years After His Car Crashed, This 7-Inch Object Was Removed From His Arm

75-year-old Arthur Lampitt, a local of Granite City, Illinois, had just underwent surgery removing a 7-inch turn signal lever from his left arm.

The object was embedded through his skin when his Ford Thunderbird slammed into a truck as he was driving to a property viewing 51 years ago. The accident caused him a broken hip and this lever from his car pushed through his arm.

The former real state agent only discovered that he has been with this piece of metal when he walked through a metal detector 10 years ago.

X-ray results showed a pencil-length object in his arm. Since it wasn’t causing him any pain, the doctors said it can stay there.

However, his arm started to hurt a few weeks ago when he was moving concrete blocks for an apartment. “Everything was fine until it started to get bigger. The arm started bulging,” said Betty, Arthur’s wife.

On Wednesday, the father of three went through a 45-minute surgery at City Place Surgery Center in Creve Coeur, Missouri, to have the metal removed.

Dr. Timothy Lang handed the signal to Betty. “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed in disbelief.

According to the doctor, a protective pocket surrounded the metal object. “We see all kinds of foreign objects like nails or pellets, but usually not this large, usually not a turn signal from a 1963 T-Bird. Something this large often gets infected.”

When asked what Arthur wanted to do with the lever, he said, “We’ll figure out something, I am sure.”