YELLOWKNIFE, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES (AP) - A 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.

Mr Billy McNeely said this week that it all goes back to an April 2010 birthday party in his home town of Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories. Mr 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, Mr McNeely would set off metal detectors and he's had a lump in his back where the knife went in. It never stopped nagging him and grew more painful this week.

Doctors dug out a blade measuring about 2.7 inches (7cm).