EΛ TA NEA (C) HELLAS XG 2024: Father-of-three, 75, has seven-inch turn signal removed from his arm that had been hidden there for 51-years

Πέμπτη 1 Ιανουαρίου 2015

Father-of-three, 75, has seven-inch turn signal removed from his arm that had been hidden there for 51-years

A 75-year-old man has had a seven-inch turn signal removed from his arm after it became embedded during a horrific car crash - 51 years ago.

Former real estate agent Arthur Lampitt from Granite City, Illinois, slammed his Ford Thunderbird head-on into a truck as he was driving to a property viewing in 1963 - breaking his hip in the process.

The father-of-three's arm was only scratched on the surface and it wasn't until he walked through a metal detector a decade ago that he discovered a piece of metal the size of a pencil was still in there.

Arthur Lampitt from Granite City, Illinois, went under the knife at the City Place Plastic Surgery Center in Illinois on New Year's Eve to remove a turn signal that was embedded in his arm during a car crash in 1963. His wife Betty was shocked when a doctor handed the object over to her in a waiting room

Mr Lampitt did not know he had the seven-inch metal object embedded in his arm until he walked through a metal detector a decade ago

Following an X-Ray doctors said it could stay in his arm because it wasn't causing any pain and hadn't been infected.

However, according to the St. Louis Dispatch, when he was lifting concrete blocks for an apartment he is renovating, it started to hurt.

He therefore went under the knife at the City Place Plastic Surgery Center in St. Louis on Wednesday with his wife Betty at his side

After a 45-minute operation, Dr. Timothy Lang walked into the waiting room and handed the metal object to Betty, to which she replied: 'Oh my God.'

She told the paper: 'My husband can do just about anything/ He's a pretty smart guy. Low key. Doesn't boast.

'Everything was fine until it started to get bigger. The arm started bulging,' she added.

Dr Lang said: 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

Initially the married couple, who met on a blind date after the crash, thought the foreign object may have been a medical instrument unwittingly left in his arm during surgery following the crash.

However when a friend showed them pictures of the mangled Thunderbird, Mr Lampitt realized that the indicator from the left side of the steering column was missing.

Mr Lampitt had never noticed the lever because he had suffered more severe injuries in the crash and his arm had healed over.

Mrs Lampitt, however, is now pleased that the mystery has been solved.

She told the paper: 'You know what it's like with a child. You know it's in your womb, but it's not until the miraculous birth occurs that you feel the reality of it.'

When asked what he would do with the lever, Mr Lampitt simply said: 'We'll figure something out.'

Mr Lampitt broke his hip when his Ford Thunderbird hit the truck head on. The accident was perceived to be so bad that some of the local papers said it was fatal