Man ‘bruised’ after being swallowed whole by humpback whale
A lobster diver was swallowed by a humpback whale in Cape Cod, US, and spat back out.
Michael Packard was around 45 feet below the surface in the waters off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, when the incident occurred.
He says his first thought was that he had been attacked by a shark.
“All of a sudden I felt this huge bump, and everything went dark,” Packard told WBZ-TV.
“Then I realised, oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth. And he’s trying to swallow me.”
“And I thought to myself okay, this is it – I’m finally – I’m gonna die.”
Packard says he thought about his wife and children as he was in the whale’s mouth for around 30 seconds.
The mammal then surfaced, shook its head and spat him out, to the amazement of his colleague, who was waiting in a nearby surface boat.
“I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water.
“I was free and I just floated there. I couldn’t believe it.”
Packard was taken to hospital and released the next day only having suffered from bruising.
“I am very bruised but have no broken bones.”
According to the Metro, Peter Corkeron, a senior scientist at the New England Aquarium estimates there is a one in a trillion chance of someone being eaten by a whale.
