Arthur Lampitt of Granite City, Illinois got into a horrible car accident with his brand new Thunderbird in 1963. He survived the crash, got married and had four sons. A few weeks ago, he began to feel pain in his arm and discovered that he’d been carrying a special part of that old Thunderbird for over 50 years.
Lampitt, now 75, had a broken hip after the crash and the cut to his arm wasn’t treated seriously at the time. The crash was so bad though that it was first reported as a fatality, his family has said, notes The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Since the injury to his arm didn’t hurt, his life went on. Her married Betty less than two years later and they raised four sons.
About a decade ago, he set off a metal detector at a courthouse in Jerseyville, Illinois. An X-ray showed that he had a slender object still in his arm, but it still didn’t hurt, so he left it there.
A few weeks ago, he was moving concrete blocks when the arm began hurting. The arm then began getting bigger, Betty noted. Then, Arthur looked at some photos of the Thunderbird and noticed that something was missing from the crash site - the seven-inch long metal blinker lever.
Lo and behold, when he underwent the surgery at City Place Surgery Center in Creve Coeur, Missouri, that’s exactly what the doctor found in Arthur’s arm, notes The Associated Press.
Arthur is still considering what to do with the lever. “We’ll figure out something, I am sure,” he told the Post-Dispatch.