Arthur Lampett’s 1963 Thunderbird suffered a catastrophic collision with a truck fifty-one years ago. Lampett survived the collision, the Ford did not. While his broken hip was the main focus during his healing, something managed to slip past the doctors and didn’t make itself known until about ten years ago, when he set off a metal detector in a courthouse. An X-ray showed that a seven-inch long object was in his arm, but on his doctor’s suggestion, it was recommended that he leave it alone. When his arm started to swell after moving some bricks around a couple of weeks ago, however, it was decided that the object had to come out of the 75-year-old’s arm. The object? The turn signal level from Lampett’s Thunderbird.
Photo: Hemmings
According to Dr. Timothy Lang, the surgeon who removed the turn signal lever, a protective pocket grew around the lever. And Lampett is a rare case…according to Dr. Lang, “”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.”
Lampett reviewed pictures of the crash that a friend of his had taken, and sure enough, the lever was missing in the photos. He isn’t sure what he is going to do with the lever now that it is out of his arm, but “we’ll figure out something, I am sure,” he said.
(Courtesy: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Well – its a good job he wasn’t sitting with his legs up round the steering wheel – but I think he’d have noticed a turn signal stalk sticking out of a certain place..