Well, this is an odd thing to discover after 77 years. A 95-year-old Chinese war veteran, identified only as Zhao, recently discovered he had been living for almost 80 years with a bullet lodged in his neck.
Zhao found out the weird news after suffering a fall from the balcony of his house in Shandong, China. Zhao didn’t report any symptoms to his family. He didn’t feel any pain, but after a while, the World War 2 veteran began feeling a slight discomfort in his neck, so his son decided to take him to the hospital for a checkup.
Doctors recommended an X-ray after hearing of Zhao’s fall to ensure that he hadn’t suffered serious damage to his neck. Only instead of a fracture, as they’d expected, the X-ray revealed a foreign object in his neck, which would later be identified as an old bullet.
Zhao told doctors he’d joined the Chinese army as a teenager and fought through two wars – against the Japanese invaders during World War 2 (1931-1945) and on the side of North Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953). He suffered multiple injuries during his time in the army, but he did not remember anything about taking a bullet to the neck.
Zhao was injured while carrying a wounded comrade across a river during one of the battles.
“There is shrapnel in other parts of his body as well,”
According to Zhao’s son-in-law
Zhao himself estimates that the bullet had been in his neck since 1944, when he was hit by a bullet while crossing a river. The bullet allegedly went in through the left side of the nose, perforating his upper jaw and knocking out four of his teeth before becoming lodged in his neck. This is just his best guess.
After examining the X-rays, doctors recommended that Zhao should leave the bullet where it is, since it hasn’t caused any issues over the last 77 years. A recommendation Zhao happily agreed with.