Ben Hsu, from Taiwan, fell asleep with the pair of AirPods still in his ear but woke up unable to find one of them, only to discover later that he had swallowed it while sleeping. The AirPod resurfaced when he relieved himself at a railway station the next day, still intact and in fully working condition (via DailyMail).
The Navy recruiter said that using the Find My AirPods feature, he found that the missing AirPod was still in his room and heard its beeping sound following him around. “I checked under my blanket and looked around but couldn’t find it – then I realized the sound was coming from my stomach”, he said.
When he went to the hospital, the medics confirmed after performing an X-ray that he had, in fact, swallowed the AirPod and that it was currently passing through his digestive system. Doctors gave him a laxative and told him to inspect his waste after defecating:
After washing the AirPod and letting it dry Mr. Hsu was amazed to find that it still worked. ‘The battery was still at 41 percent! It was incredible,’ he said, calling his experience with the Apple product ‘magical’.
Dr. Chen Chieh-fan, who works in the emergency room, explained: ‘Because of the plastic shell around the AirPod, the risk of it causing him harm in a similar way to swallowing a regular lithium-ion battery is much lower.’
The doctor also said that direct exposure to the AirPod’s battery could have caused a serious rupture in his intestines.
