14 DAY TRIAL // This past December 31, surgeons in the US operated on an elderly man and successfully managed to remove a car part that became embedded into his left arm following a crash that occurred over 5 decades ago.
The car part, a photo of which was shared with the public and is available below, is a turn signal rod. As detailed by the surgeons who pulled it from the man's body, it measures 7 inches (nearly 18 centimeters) in length.
How the turn signal lever ended up in the man's arm
It is understood that the car part worked its way into Arthur Lampitt's left arm back in 1963. At that time, the man, now 75, was just 24 years old and was working as a real estate agent.
Arthur Lampitt details how, one rainy day, he lost control of his vehicle while driving around Granite City, Illinois, and collided with another four-wheeler. The crash was pretty bad and put our Arthur in the hospital for quite a while.
Thus, when the man was pulled from the wreckage, his left arm was bleeding profusely. Besides, five of his ribs and his left hip were broken in several places. Luckily, doctors managed to save his life.
The thing is that, as good a job as they did pulling glass shards from Arthur Lampitt's body and putting the man's bones back together, they failed to notice that, during the collision, a turn signal rod had become embedded in his arm.
How the turn signal rod was discovered and removed
Arthur Lampitt says that he became aware of the fact that he had a car part hidden inside his body about 15 years ago, when a metal detector at a courthouse in Illinois picked up the presence of a foreign object in his left arm.
However, doctors told the 75-year-old that, since the car part was not bothering him in any way, there was no need to go the extra mile and cut it out. It was only after he started experiencing pain because of it that the man decided to bid the car part farewell.
The turn signal lever started bothering the man towards the beginning of last year's December. On the very last day of the month, before celebrating the New Year, the 75-year-old had surgeons remove it. The intervention lasted less than an hour.
According to USA Today, the man is now feeling much better. Still, he cannot help but admit that he was quite shocked to lay eyes on the car part that remained hidden inside his body for over 5 decades. “I was amazed to see how corroded it was,” he said in a statement.
