Man accidentally swallows an AirPod, still works after it’s ‘recovered’

If you get really tired after shoveling snow, don’t fall asleep wearing your AirPods while watching “The Thing” or bad things can happen – like ingesting one of your AirPods, requiring it to be recovered via an endoscopy procedure.

Bradford Gauthier for The Guardian:

On 1 February this year, snow fell heavily on my home town of Worcester, Massachusetts, and I had been shovelling for an hour and a half before turning in at midnight. I was exhausted, but it’s my habit to watch movies on my phone as I go to sleep. I put on a favourite – the 1980s version of The Thing, starring Kurt Russell. It’s the story of researchers in Antarctica being gradually taken over by a malevolent alien.

Within 10 minutes of the opening credits, I could barely keep my eyes open. The next thing I knew, four hours had passed, my wife, Heather, was asleep beside me and the movie had long finished. Groggily, I moved my phone off the pillow and removed the wireless AirPod headphone from one ear – the other had fallen out and I couldn’t find it…

At the walk-in centre, the receptionist asked for my symptoms. My response was met with a bemused look and the doctor who examined me was incredulous. She said people with an object lodged in their throat usually experience a lot of pain, plus it seemed unlikely that I could have inadvertently swallowed a piece of plastic an inch and a half long. I was left on my own as she went to examine the results of a precautionary X-ray.

The doctor’s expression when she returned was priceless. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. She led me to her workstation, which was surrounded by medical staff. On the screen was a cartoon-clear image of my ribs and, parked between them at 45 degrees, the unmistakable shape of the missing AirPod…

[At] the endoscopy centre, where the AirPod was got back out via my mouth using a tube with a lasso attachment. It was extremely uncomfortable, but I was sedated and so only half awake. A few minutes later, I was given the AirPod in a neat little bag.

I tried it as soon as I got home. It works fine…

MacDailyNews Take: Apple AirPods take a licking — and then some — and keep on ticking!