Seven-Inch Turn Signal Removed From Pensioners Arm 51 Years After Car Accident

When 75-year-old Arthur Lampitt went to the medical center for an outpatient surgery procedure, along with his wife, Betty, who accompanied him, for a pain in his left arm, the last thing he expected was for doctors to find a seven-inch turn signal in the arm from a car accident 51 years ago.

Back in 1963, not long before they’d met on a blind date, Arthur, a real estate agent at the time, was on his way to show a house when he smashed a brand new Thunderbird head-on into a huge truck.

In those days, when cars barely had seat belts, the wreck was so serious that it was mistakenly reported over the air waves around East Peoria, Illinois, as a fatality.

At the time, Arthur and his doctors concentrated on the badly broken hip he sustained in the accident and more or less ignored his arm, which, on the surface, was cut and flecked with some broken glass.

According to a Daily Mail report, the arm healed but around 10 to 15 years ago. something odd happened during a visit to the courthouse in Jerseyville, Illinois, for work when Arthur’s arm set off the metal detector.

Following that, an X-ray revealed that a slim object, about the size of a pencil, was stuck in his arm. But because it didn’t cause pain and he had full use of his arm, Arthur was told to leave it be.

A few weeks ago, when Arthur was moving concrete blocks, his arm began to hurt badly and he felt a type of sharp point in the limb.

As his wife Betty told reporters, “Everything was fine until it started to get bigger. The arm started bulging.”

The Lampitt family were obviously shocked when, after the 45 minute procedure on Wednesday morning, hand surgeon Dr. Timothy Lang entered the waiting room at City Place Surgery Center on North New Ballas Road to give the family the news.

It’s a “seven-inch long” turn signal, Dr. Lang revealed, to which Betty exclaimed — predictably — “Oh, my God.”

The doctor told reporters, “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.”