Lobster hunter Michael Packard (right) survived a giant whale encounter, standing here in a hospital bed at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The humpback whale pictured here was photographed off the coast of Ecuador. Photo: shutterstock/private
A lobster fisherman said he was swallowed by a humpback whale while diving off the coast of Massachusetts on Friday.
I was in a closed mouth for 30-40 seconds before it rose to the surface and spit on me, says Michael Packard himself on Facebook.
The man was taken to the hospital, but survived the accident with bruises and minor injuries. Maybe just the knee outside the joint, according to BBC.
He must have been about ten meters below the surface of the water when this happened. To the local newspaper Cape Cod Times He says he suddenly felt a violent push before everything turned black.
This is how a local NBC journalist in Boston describes what happened on Twitter:
I first thought it was a shark
Packard initially thought he had been attacked by a shark, but soon discovered that there were no sharp teeth and no wounds.
He struggled for a while before he started to see the light.
Then it became clear to him that it was in the mouth of a whale.
I thought: Oh my God – I’m in the mouth of a whale and it’s trying to swallow me! Packard says CNN/WBZ.
Packard says he was carrying oxygen bottles on his back inside the whale’s mouth.
– I thought: Now I will die.
The thought crossed my head: I’m breathing. Do I keep breathing here inside the whale’s mouth until I run out of air?
Then he said to himself, “Okay. That was it. Now I’m going to die.”
– I thought of my wife and children, he says. – There was no way out.
The whale started throwing its head back and forth before suddenly spitting, according to Packard.
Packard was thrown into the air and landed in the water.
– I was free and lay there and floated, he says.
His friend Josiah Mayo was with Packard on a fishing trip. He is said to have experienced a “water blast” when the whale surfaced.
Unable to eat people
Humpback whales have large mouths, but their pharynx is too narrow to eat a human, according to Jock Robins, a whale researcher at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
She’s never heard of similar stories before, but says she has no reason to doubt the story, in part because she knows those involved.
The diver will likely be in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to Robbins. It’s not certain that the whale figured out that something else was on its way.
– When they hunt they come very quickly and open their mouths and swallow fish and water very quickly, she tells AFP.
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