Using earbuds while falling asleep might seem like a good way to drift off to dulcet tones but it could also be dangerous.
Brad Gauthier, of Worcester in the US state of Massachusetts, found this out last week after doctors had to remove a wireless earbud from his oesophagus.
In a post on Facebook, Mr Gauthier said he had gone to bed on Monday night listening to music and woken up on Tuesday without realising anything was wrong.
He had spent an hour shovelling snow and taken a sip of water but when it would not go down, he had to lean over to drain it from his throat.
Brad Gauthier swallowed a wireless ear bud while he was sleeping. Pic: Facebook
He also noticed he was missing one of his two wireless earbuds and an attempt to find it using his phone’s ‘Find My AirPod’ feature was unsuccessful as the battery was dead.
“I think I probably would have had a heart attack if I had hit that button and the sound came out of my throat,” he told NBC Boston 10.
An X-ray at a local medical centre showed the earbud was lodged in the lower part of his oesophagus.
It was removed with an endoscopy and Mr Gauthier wrote on Facebook: “Be careful listening to wireless headphones when you fall asleep, you never know where they’ll end up.”