A young man in Taiwan said he accidentally swallowed one of his Apple AirPods recently. While it’s not clear how he managed to do that, he claims the earbud survived a journey through his digestive system, and even worked after he retrieved it from his faeces. That’s something the tech giant definitely didn’t promise the device would survive.
Ben Hsu said he fell asleep one night with the devices in his ears, but when he woke up the next morning he could find only one. After failing to find it on his bed, Ben activated his iPhone’s handy ‘Find My AirPods’ feature and claims he heard the sound coming out from his stomach, The Daily Star reported.
“The map showed that my AirPod was at home, and I could hear the ‘beep, beep’ sound, which seemed to follow me around the room.
“But I checked under my blanket and looked around but couldn’t find it then I realised the sound was coming from my stomach!
“I swallowed my AirPod!”
Although he didn’t feel any discomfort at the time, the navy recruiter rushed off to the Kaohsiung Municipal United Hospital where medics confirmed it was in his stomach.
The doctors gave him a laxative and told him to monitor his poos over the coming days. But they warned that if it didn’t pass, he would have to undergo surgery.
He was forced into a foul-smelling search but was able to pick out the £65 device and found that it was still intact. 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.’
