If you take away anything from this guy’s situation — it’s to never fall asleep with AirPods in your ears!
Worcester, Massachusetts, resident Bradford Gauthier is warning people to never fall asleep with AirPods in your ears, after a bizarre turn of events — after he did just that.
Gauthier woke up Tuesday, shoveled snow for about an hour and then went inside to take a sip of water. But the liquid wouldn’t go down, and he had to lean over to drain it from his throat.
Gauthier also noticed he was missing one of his two Apple AirPod earbuds, which he said typically uses as he falls asleep.
Gauthier’s son suggested that perhaps his father had swallowed the earbud, which is exactly what an X-ray at a local emergency clinic revealed. The small plastic device was lodged in his lower esophagus.
Here’s one for the record books… I woke up this morning, felt fine, but when I tried to drink a glass of water it…
Posted by Bradford Gauthier on Tuesday, February 2, 2021
“Sure enough I had an AirPod lodged in the lower part of my esophagus. I just had an emergency Endoscopy to get it removed,” Gauthier wrote in his post.
Gauthier said he never experienced more than minor discomfort. He told NBC Boston 10 that he wanted to share his experience to caution others not to sleep with their headphones.
“Be careful listening to wireless headphones when you fall asleep,” he warned on Facebook, “you never know where they’ll end up!”