Man Needed Surgery After Swallowing Earbud While Sleeping

A Massachusetts man needed to go to the hospital after he swallowed one of his earbuds while sleeping. Brad Gauthier always listened to music when he went to bed, using his wireless earbuds.

When he woke up last Tuesday (February 2), his earbuds weren't in his ears, but he didn't think much of it and went outside to start shoveling the two feet of snow that had fallen. About an hour later, he went inside to drink some water and realized something was wrong.

He was unable to swallow the water and had to lean over the sink to drain it from his throat. His son suggested that he may have swallowed one of the earbuds in his sleep.

"By that point, my son and wife had gotten the idea that I may have swallowed it. They brought it up jokingly at first, but it seemed too coincidental that I would be missing it when I knew I went to bed with it, while I felt a distinct blockage in the center of my chest," Gauthier told WWLP.

Gauthier went to the hospital, where an x-ray showed the earbud stuck in his lower esophagus. Doctors performed an emergency endoscopy and removed the wireless earbud.

He told the news station that he never experienced any pain or discomfort, which his doctor said was not common.

"The GI physician said it's extremely uncommon for a blockage not to be painful or severely discomforting," Gauthier said. "It never occurred to me that [sleeping with headphones] could be a safety hazard. I was really quite lucky."

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