Canadian doctors remove 3-inch knife blade from man’s back three years after stabbing

Canadian doctors have removed a nearly 3-inch knife blade from a man's back more than three years after he was stabbed in a fight.

Billy McNeely, 32, from the Northwest Territories, thought he was scratching an old itch this week when his girlfriend, poking around, discovered the awful truth.

She told CBC:

"I told Billy, 'There's a knife sticking out of your back.' I was scared. I was ready to pull it out with tweezers."

McNeely had a 2.7-inch knife blade inside his back, the Canadian Press reported.

McNeely recalled that in April, 2010, he got into a fight over an arm-wrestling contest at a party in his home town of Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories.

He was stabbed five times and a doctor at a nearby health center stitched him up back without taking X-Rays.

McNeely told CBC that he had noticed a lump in his back where the knife went in that always caused him trouble and grew more painful over time.

He would also set off metal detectors, he said, adding:

"I'm kind of upset with the health system. They should've X-rayed right off the beginning in case there was internal damage."

McNeely said he was considering filing a lawsuit, the UK Daily Mail wrote.