Blade pulled from man's back three years after stabbing A knife is shown in this handout photo taken in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, on Monday, March 20, 2013. A Northwest Territories man was just scratching what he thought was an annoying old itch earlier this week when it turned out to be a knife blade that had been buried in his flesh for almost three years. / AP YELLOWKNIFE, NORTHWEST TERRITORIESA Canadian man was just scratching what he thought was an old itch this week when it turned out to be a knife blade that had been buried in his back for almost three years. Shocking medical scans Billy McNeely said this week it all goes back to an April, 2010, birthday party in McNeely's home town of Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories. McNeely got into a fight over an arm-wrestling contest and was stabbed five times. A doctor stitched him up back then and never took X-Rays. Ever since, McNeely would set off metal detector and he's had a lump in his back where the knife went in. "I've done some jail time in the past," he told the CBC. The guards rub over you with a metal wand detector, and every time it hit my back... it went off. It never stopped nagging him and grew more painful this week. Doctors dug out a blade measuring about 2.7 inches (7 centimeters). "I'm kind of upset with the health system," he said to the CBC, which reported he asked to keep the blade as a souvenir. They should've X-rayed right off the beginning in case there was internal damage.