A 44-year-old Tanzanian man was shocked to discover he had been living with a large knife blade lodged in his chest for eight years. The startling discovery was made after he went to the hospital complaining of pus discharge from his right nipple.

Doctors at the Muhimbili National Hospital noted that the man, who had suffered multiple stab wounds during a violent altercation eight years prior, was initially treated at a hospital that lacked the equipment for an X-ray. Since he reported no pain after his wounds healed, the knife went undetected.

The X-ray revealed a “retained metallic object in the mid-thorax” that had entered through his right shoulder blade. Miraculously, the blade had somehow managed to avoid all his major organs. What doctors found even more bizarre was that the knife had caused the man no discomfort for so long. The pus discharge that led to the discovery was a result of dead tissue building up around the foreign object.