A WAR veteran was shocked when an x-ray showed a freak neck injury he sustained almost eighty years ago was still there – and he didn't even realise.

Doctors at Zhao He's local hospital in Shandong, China, found the 95-year-old had a bullet lodged into his flesh which had gone unnoticed since the end of the second World War.

His son-in-law Wang said Zhao couldn't remember when exactly he was shot as he suffered many gunshots while on duty and was completely unaware he was hit in the neck.

Wang said: ''He 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.''

Zhao joined the Chinese army as a teenager, where he fought alongside North Korean communists after the U.S. joined forces with South Korean troops in the Korean War in the early 1950s.

Despite fighting through two wars and suffering an assortment of injuries, Wang said his father-in-law never complained of his injuries.

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Zhao retired as a war hero and has since lived an ordinary life working in local factories in the Shandong province.

Due to his age, his family and medical experts have decided to leave the bullet where it is rather than attempt a risky surgical removal.

According to medical experts, the bullet has not caused any medical conditions for Zhao in its 77 years of being lodged in his neck.

''I've been healthy all these years so there is no reason to change things now,'' Zhao said.

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In 2003, a similar incident was reported in Scotland, when World War II veteran Robert Kincaid, of Gourock, Inverclyde, was discovered to also have a bullet lodged in his neck.

Neither Zhao nor Kincaid have suffered any adverse medical conditions as a result of their injuries.

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