Mr. Bradford Gautier managed to swallow an AirPod in his sleep, but after his expulsion from his body he continued to work without any problems.
Bradford Gauthier recounted his experience in a interview with The Guardian. Apparently, the AirPod fell on his pillow while he was in bed watching a movie drowsy and somehow strangely ended up in his throat.
The next morning he realized that he had lost the AirPod and could not find it through the "find the Airpod" function as his battery was empty. He also realized that he had a problem drinking water because something "had stuck" in his esophagus, but he did not make the connection, until his son jokingly said to him: "did you swallow it in your sleep?"
He went to a doctor where he took an X-ray and found the lost AirPod lodged in his esophagus. The cphysician he didn't want to let it take its natural exit route through the digestive system, as he feared it might get stuck in the intestine or rupture along the way. He removed it with a long pair of forceps inserted through her mouth and thus Gautier avoided the worst.
After he arrived at home, Gautier found that the AirPod worked perfectly, although its microphone is slightly less efficient than before the incident.
This is not the first time an AirPod has survived in its owner's body. In 2019, a man in Taiwan tried to locate his AirPod with the Find My Airpod feature on his iPhone and chasing the sound of the AirPod around his room. Eventually, he realized that the AirPod was hitting his stomach.