A friend of mine told me some time ago that it actually can be dangerous to take pills (the process of taking it), which to me seemed like a pretty bold statement -- swallowing a pill doesn't seem to be that hard.
The idea was that if you are not careful enough and for example start coughing while taking the pill and then try to swallow it again, the pill could end up in your lungs and cause all kinds of nasty things. I don't really know a lot about medicine and therefore I was a bit surprised at first (this didn't seem to be that far fetched at all). Upon thinking a bit about it and googling I really couldn't find anything useful. A lot of articles talk about swallowing things you shouldn't (battery, etc.) and what to do then, but I really didn't find anything understandable about inhaling a pill.
So can this happen? Would you know that it happend? And is there an upper limit of how big the pill can be (I imagine that inhaling a pill of 2mm x 2mm x 2mm is a lot easier, if possible, than a 1cm x 5mm x 5mm or something the like). If it can happen, what are you supposed to do if it happens?
PS. Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that you are not a child or a extremely old person (or any other kind of group of people that could have problems with swallowing).
A related article that discusses the issue: