A man who woke up suddenly finding it difficult to breathe was shocked when doctors told him that he had swallowed one of his AirPods in his sleep. Brad Gauthier, 38, from Worcester, felt like he was choking while trying to drink a glass of water after waking up. He leaned over to get the water out and continued his day as normal, despite having a strange sensation in his chest. During the day, he noticed that one of his earbuds was missing. His family joked that he may have swallowed it as he had a sore chest.
"My wife mentioned it when I came in and we laughed about it, but something just clicked and I got a weird sinking feeling that I'd swallowed it in my sleep. At that point, I putzed around for another 10 minutes thinking about it but we all determined it'd be better safer than sorry to go to hospital," he was quoted as saying by Daily Mail. Doctors suggested that the food brad ate from his wife's birthday party the night before could be the source of his discomfort, but X-ray reports soon revealed that his AirPod was wedged in his oesophagus. Brad was fortunate that the position the earbud had lodged in had prevented it from causing serious damage. "Had I inhaled it or it had gotten lodged or constricted my airway that could have certainly been a significantly more serious matter," he said.