Florida teen's dislodged AirPod tracks hit-and-run driver's SUV

A bicyclist's fortuitous AirPod bounce after a terrible crash helped police track down a hit-and-run driver.

A New York Times report told the story of 15-year-old Lochlan Nicol of Jensen Beach, Florida, who rode his bike to a gas station on the evening of May 22nd, 2024 to get some ice cream. An SUV suddenly turning into the station's driveway caused the teen to crash, with Nicol's head going through the rear-passenger window.

During the accident, one of the boy's AirPods fell out and into the SUV, lodging itself under a floor mat. The driver did stop briefly, but only to move the unconscious and seriously injured Nicol out of the road before fleeing the scene.

Nicol suffered fractures to his nose, cheekbone, and eye socket, along with a major gash along his leg. The incident was reported to police, and Nicol was flown by helicopter to the hospital.

Once informed of the crash, Nicols' girlfriend went to the scene of the crash and located his wallet, phone, watch, and AirPods case. She took the items to the hospital and noticed that only one AirPod was in the case.

Nicol had been wearing the other AirPod when the accident occurred, but it was not recovered. When the teen later opened Find My to try and locate the AirPod, it showed that it was at an address about four miles from the scene of the crime.

Police were contacted, and Nicol provided the information.

"It was that earbud that provided geo-tracking right to the suspect's Jensen Beach home," a sheriff's spokesman said. "There's no moral to the story. It was one of those things. It was a good break for us, a real good break."

The tracking information provided by the AirPod let police to a Jensen Beach address with a silver Hyundai Santa Fe with a broken rear passenger-side window. The owner, 49-year-old Peter Bradford Swing, was arrested, and the dislodged AirPod recovered.

He later confessed to police that he fled the scene because he had previously been jailed on drug charges. Swing now faces up to 15 years for allegedly failing to stop at the scene of a crash with great bodily injury, a felony offense.

"It's honestly amazing," Lochlan's father, Derek Nicol, said. "People say it's karma. So maybe it's karma that it happened. It's just weird."

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6 Comments

appleinsideruser 600 comments · 5 Years

About 3 months ago

And yet when I misplace my AirPods at home, it tells me it doesn’t know where they are. Hmmm.

Cesar Battistini Maziero 383 comments · 8 Years

The surprising thing here is that the tracking worked. Mine never works.

Xed 2806 comments · 4 Years

What a PoS. What's interesting is that drivers who have hit a bicyclist almost never get in trouble for the accident unless there's gross negligence involved, or they already had something else outstanding, like a suspended license or a warrant out for their arrest.

beowulfschmidt 2295 comments · 12 Years

Xed said:

What a PoS. What's interesting is that drivers who have hit a bicyclist almost never get in trouble for the accident unless there's gross negligence involved, or they already had something else outstanding, like a suspended license or a warrant out for their arrest.

I'm mostly convinced that this is because many, if not most, cyclists either don't know the rules of the road to which they are subject, or just don't care, which often makes the accident the cyclist's fault, and not the driver's. As a cyclist myself, this pisses me off greatly, as those types ruin it for everyone.

Completely anecdotal, but I still have dash cam video of a group of cyclists running a stop sign in my neighborhood with several of them hitting a car on the "main" road, breaking his side windows and denting his car, and incidentally ruining their bikes. That "main" road has no stop sign, so the car definitely had the right of way. The lead rider of the group tried arguing with the cop that because they were in an organized group ride, they had the right of way, that they couldn't be expected to have 100+ riders all stop at every stop sign.

I provided the dash cam video to the cop and the other driver, so the case was pretty solid against the bikers, and the driver of the car had all his damage paid for by the group that organized the ride. At least they were smart enough to carry insurance. I've since learned that the group's policy was, in fact, to observe all relevant traffic laws, and that the guy leading this ride was some kind of maverick who thought "bike = road god".

applebynature 119 comments · 9 Years

beowulfschmidt said:

Xed said:

What a PoS. What's interesting is that drivers who have hit a bicyclist almost never get in trouble for the accident unless there's gross negligence involved, or they already had something else outstanding, like a suspended license or a warrant out for their arrest.

I'm mostly convinced that this is because many, if not most, cyclists either don't know the rules of the road to which they are subject, or just don't care, which often makes the accident the cyclist's fault, and not the driver's. As a cyclist myself, this pisses me off greatly, as those types ruin it for everyone.

Numerous studies have shown that cyclists are at fault in only 13-25% of accidents involving motor vehicles, with studies saying, on average, that just under 19% of accidents are the cyclist's fault. I think your entire attitude in that comment is anti-cyclist and espousing widely and falsely held beliefs that cyclists do not respect the road. I'm not a professional cyclists, I don't even have one of those skin-tight cycling outfits or pedals that clip into special shoes, I road bike once or twice a week for exercise. But the vast majority of cyclists that I know or encounter are extremely aware of their surroundings, are careful, and above all, they all know they are to abide by the rules of the road just like a car should, and for the most part they do. I can't think of a time when I've seen someone flagrantly disobeying road rules/law, other than rolling through a stop sign at a 4 way stop within a neighborhood with no cars nearby (which the motor vehicles also do, but with greater frequency, speed, carelessness, and unawareness). If you want to talk about whether motor vehicle drivers or cyclists are more prone to disobey traffic laws, it is without a doubt motor vehicle drivers. Let's not continue to perpetuate this anti-cyclist attitude with little to back it up.