Massachusetts Man Accidentally Swallows AirPod But Doesn't Realize Until X-Ray Reveals It

A man from Worcester, Massachusetts, accidentally swallowed his wireless earbud and he realized it only when he found one of his AirPods was missing.

Bradford Gauthier said he felt trouble swallowing Tuesday morning, but he ignored his dry throat and carried on with his day-to-day activities.

"I woke up this morning, felt fine, but when I tried to drink a glass of water it wouldn't go down., I had to lean over to let it spill out into the sink. I went back out in the morning and shoveled [snow] for an hour. When I came in, I tried to drink a glass of water again and couldn't," Gauthier said, adding that the day before too, he was shoveling snow and went to bed tired, NBC2 reported.

Gauthier took to Facebook to share his unique experience.

Later that day, Gauthier noticed that one of his AirPods was missing. Since he sleeps with them so as not to disturb his child, he immediately started feeling weird.

"By that point, my son and wife had gotten the idea that I may have swallowed it. They brought it up jokingly at first, but it seemed too coincidental that I would be missing it when I knew I went to bed with it, while I felt a distinct blockage in the center of my chest," he said.

Gauthier went to a hospital to get an x-ray, only to find the missing object lodged in his esophagus. He was subjected to an emergency endoscopy to remove it.

Gauthier said he experienced nothing more than mild discomfort and went on with his day as usual. "The GI physician said it's extremely uncommon for a blockage not to be painful or severely discomforting. It never occurred to me that sleeping with headphones could be a safety hazard. I was really quite lucky," he said.

Last year, a man in India had swallowed a toothbrush while brushing his teeth. An X-ray revealed the brush had reached the stomach through the esophagus. The 19-centimeter brush was immediately removed as doctors feared any delay could turn fatal for the patient. The man was trying to clean the back of his throat when he accidentally swallowed the brush.