He was driving his tan Thunderbird to work one morning in July 1963 when he crashed, an accident so bad that the local radio station reported it as a fatality, he said.
Lampitt, 75, of Granite City, Illinois, recalls the accident as a series of unfortunate incidents.
It had been raining, and the road was slick with oil. Lampitt had tried to have his tires replaced the day before but couldn’t get an appointment. To top it off, one curve along his route was prone to puddling — and that’s where calamity struck.
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Lampitt thinks he will give the piece to his doctor.
“My original plan was to make it a keychain, but it has been so corroded having been in my body for 51 years, so I may give it back to the doctor. He expressed interest in it, and I thought I would let him add it to his collection,” Lampitt said.