When an Amber Alert is issued, a loud warning sound will most likely interrupt whatever you are doing on your phone. The Amber Alert is intended to be helpful and potentially life-saving, but sometimes there are negative side effects to these alerts.

Amber Alerts can be really loud. This can be a good thing. It’s supposed to get your attention. However, there is such a thing as being too loud to the point of damaging your hearing.

Now there is a lawsuit related to Amber Alerts and the hearing problems they caused for one 12-year-old. The lawsuit is against Apple.

According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, Carlos Gordoa and Ariani Reyes claim that their 12-year-old son was watching Netflix on his phone back in 2020. He was wearing Apple Airpods while he watched the streaming service. Then, there was an Amber Alert, and the warning sound was so loud that their son now has permanent hearing loss.

According to Gordoa and Reyes, due to the loud volume of the Amber Alert, their son suffers from a ringing in his ears, known as tinnitus. In addition, he also suffers from dizziness and has to wear a hearing aid due to hearing loss.

The parents claim that Apple is responsible for their son’s hearing loss because when there is an Amber Alert the Airpods ignore the volume the user chooses and instead plays the alert at an extremely loud volume. They also claim that Apple knew this was an issue since there are online complaints about this problem that date all the way back to 2019. In addition, they claim that Apple does not include a warning about the dangerous volume of the alerts.

As a result of their son’s hearing loss, Gordoa and Reyes are suing Apple for negligence and fraud. The parents claim that because of the Airpods, their son’s life is “severely altered.”

Have you ever been wearing Airpods when an Amber Alert went off? If so, was the Amber Alert louder than the volume you had chosen? If so, do you think the Amber Alert was so loud that it could cause hearing damage? Do you think Apple should include a warning about the potential danger of wearing Airpods when there is an Amber Alert, or do you think the company should modify the product so that the Amber Alert is played at the same volume that user chooses?