More than half a century ago, Arthur Lampitt of Granite City, Illinois, was driving his 1963 Thunderbird when he crashed right into a truck. He survived the crash with a broken hip, which he recovered from. Apparently, that crash would haunt him again 51 years later.

Lampitt underwent surgery on Wednesday to remove a mysterious metal object from his left arm. A long, pencil-like object which turned out to be none other than the 7-inch turn signal lever from his old T-bird so many years ago.

Flashback to that fateful night in 1963 when Lampitt drove his brand new T-bird head-on to a truck in East Peoria. The crash was so serious, that it was erroneously reported as a fatality over the local airwaves at the time.

Fortunately, Lampitt survived the ordeal but had a broken hip that the doctors focused their attention on, rather than his arm, which was cut up and speckled with broken glass. At the time, nobody suspected a foreign object had lodged itself in his arm.

Indeed, Lampitt went about his life without ever knowing he still had an artifact from the crash in his body.

Not long afterwards, Lampitt met Betty on a blind date and they married in 1965. They built a life together in Illinois, raising four boys, with Lampitt selling real estate, and doing odd jobs.

Then, about 10 years ago, Lampitt was surprised to find that he somehow set off the metal detector at a courthouse in Jerseyville where he was working. He got an x-ray done and doctors told him that there was a metal object in his left arm. Since it was not causing him any discomfort or loss of movement, they decided to leave it alone.

A few weeks ago, as he was moving concrete blocks for a home renovation he was working on, the object seemed to start moving and bulging out, causing sharp pain. For the first time, Lampitt started to wonder what it could be.

Remembering his 1963 accident, many theorized that it could have been some sort of medical instrument left behind during surgery. Wanting to get to the bottom of it, Lampitt looked through old photographs of the wreck.

His sharp eyes noticed that on the left steering column of his old car, the metal blinker lever was missing. He immediately suspected that this could be the object that has been lodged in his arm for the past 51 years.

His suspicions were confirmed on Jan. 31, 2014 when Dr. Timothy Lang removed the lever in a 45 minute surgery at the City Place Surgery Center on North New Ballas Road. Lampitt was lucky that a protective pocket somehow formed around the lever, the doctor told Betty, Lampitt's wife.

"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," said Lang.

According to reports, other than being surprised at how corroded the lever became while inside his body, he did not give it much thought. He said he's not quite sure what he'll do with his strange keepsake - perhaps turn it into a keychain - but he'll think of something.

75 year old Lampitt recovered well from surgery and was back at work fixing up an old house, only hours after being cleared to go home.

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