Posted on 11/29/2007 2:23:12 PM PST by NormsRevenge
FAIRMONT, Minn. - It won't fit him anymore, but a Massachusetts man has his metal identity bracelet back after it was found inside a chicken gizzard in this southern Minnesota city — more than 25 years after he lost it in his grandfather's barn.
Aaron Giles, 31, of Gloucester, Mass., lived in Fairmont as a child and played hide-and-seek and other games with his brothers in their grandfather's barn near Sherburn.
"I would spend most of my time out at his farm and that's the only place I can think of that I would have lost it," Giles said Thursday, adding that he thinks it was lost when he was 4 or 5 years old.
The barn was dismantled a few years ago, and the materials were used to construct another barn in rural Elmore, about 45 miles away, he said. Giles thinks his bracelet was imbedded in the barn materials when they were moved.
Workers at Olson Locker in Fairmont were cutting the meat of chickens that came from an Elmore farm when one of them, Brittany McDonald, came across a shiny object in a chicken gizzard. McDonald, whose grandfather owns the locker, saw Aaron's name, address and phone number engraved on it.
"It's the strangest story that I have ever heard in the meat locker business," said Mark Olson, McDonald's grandfather. "I've heard of livestock swallowing unusual objects, but this situation stands out."
Olson was able to track down Giles' father, Doug, who had moved to Arizona. Giles says he received his old bracelet in September.
"It was in pretty immaculate shape. Everything was working on it, and all the engravings on it were still legible," Giles said. "It was quite the surprise."
Giles said he expects the bracelet to stay in his family for many years to come. "I have no plans on trying to lose it again," he said.
Unfortunately, (burp) .. the chicken is unavailable for comment.
did the medical bracelet say, ‘allergic to chicken’?
Haruspicy ping.
I thought a chicken lived about 10 years at longest?
He lost it in the barn years ago; that doesn't mean that a chicken ate it right away. It certainly could have been found and ingested by a chicken more recently.
According to this, 7 or 8 years is average.
http://www.hsilai.org/english/merittimes/detail.asp?index=16352&page=A
Sounds to me like the trinket might have made a couple rounds through a couple birds! Birds like that are notorious for going after shiny sparkling things.
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