A TikTok user shared her story for “educational purposes” after she mistakenly swallowed one of her AirPods instead of a painkiller medicine.
Going by the username @iamcarliiib, the 27-year-old resident of Boston was visibly upset in her video post.
She said, “I was crawling into bed, I had an ibuprofen 800 in my right hand and I had my left AirPod in my left hand. I like threw something back, took my water bottle and took a sip and then realized it wasn’t the ibuprofen. I tried puking it up and it won’t come out. I’m losing my mind.”
Her attempts to regurgitate the AirPod were futile, which made her feel more distressed.
Fortunately, Carli shared another video update about her dilemma, saying that the AirPod has passed through her system naturally, with an x-ray scan confirming no damage had been done to her insides.
She said, “I had an X-ray done a few hours ago and it revealed that the AirPod had passed. I had a feeling that it had but I just wanted to make sure.”
In another TikTok video, Carli shared a voice recording she got using audio picked up from her missing AirPod while it was in her stomach.
She unknowingly did this, not realizing the left AirPod was still connected to her phone while making a call to her friend. At the time, her right earbud was in the charging case and so wasn’t connected. The voice recording she played contained some gurgling at first, then her muffled voice could be heard.
Carli’s experience isn’t the first time this incident has happened.
Back in 2019, Ben Hsu from Taiwan swallowed an AirPod while sleeping, claiming they still work even after passing through his digestive system.
Apple’s Find My Phone tracking feature, which remotely turns on a device and instructs it to play a beeping sound, gave Hsu a hint that the device was in his stomach, given the tone emitting from within him.
He said, “I checked under my blanket and looked around but couldn’t find it – then I realized the sound was coming from my stomach.”
After taking laxatives as prescribed by his doctor, he managed to retrieve the device from his poop, and it was still working nicely.
He was amazed, “The battery was still at 41 per cent! It was incredible.”