Diver Swallowed By Whale Lives To Tell The Tale

NEW YORK (VINnews) — In an almost biblical reenactment of the story of Jonah, a lobster diver off the coast of Cape Cod was literally swallowed by a humpback whale and then released back into the water without suffering significant injury.

Michael Packard, 56, of Wellfleet, Mass., said on social media that he was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Mass., on Friday morning when the whale suddenly scooped him up.

“I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out,” Packard later wrote on Facebook. “I am very bruised up but have no broken bones.”

The Cape Cod Times reported that Packard was pulled out of the water by his crewman and rushed back to shore, where he was transported to Cape Cod Hospital. He  limped out of the hospital that same afternoon.

While he’s still recovering from soft tissue damage, Packard told the newspaper he’ll be back in the water as soon as he heals.

Packard described his ordeal to reporters: “I dived down to about 45 feet of water and all of a sudden I felt this huge bump and everything went dark,” he said. Packard could sense that he was moving but initially he thought he had been bitten by a shark, “and then I felt around and realized there were no teeth and didn’t feel any great pain and then I said ‘Oh my G-d I’m in a whale’s mouth and he’s trying to swallow me'” Packard added.

"Oh my God, I'm in a whale's mouth"

Lobsterman Michael Packard says he was diving in Cape Cod, US, when he was gulped and spat out by a humpback whalehttps://t.co/m90SwWqpXy pic.twitter.com/IUA0DO5vOo

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 12, 2021

After about half a minute, the whale rose to the water’s surface and began shaking its head from side to side.

“I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water,” Packard recalled. “And I was free, and I just floated there … I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I got out of that.”

Divers usually go out in pairs, with the crewman tracking the movements of the diver underwater by following the air bubbles. Packard’s crewman, Josiah Mayo, did not see him being swallowed as this occurred underwater but later said that he saw Packard being tossed into the sea by the whale. Mayo and Joe Francis, a charter boat captain who happened to be nearby, pulled the stunned Packard out of the water.

I saw Mike come flying out of the water, feet first with his flippers on, and land back in the water,” Francis later told WBZ-TV. “I jumped aboard the boat. We got him up, got his tank off. Got him on the deck and calmed him down and he goes, ‘Joe, I was in the mouth of a whale.’ ”

Whale expert Iain Kerr, CEO of the Massachusetts-based conservation nonprofit Ocean Alliance, explained that humpback whales are known for lunge feeding, in which they open their mouths, accelerate and “take in 10 SUVs worth of water and fish and then everything else.” The whale normally is aware of what it swallows but might have taken in Packard together with a school of fish.

Kerr noted that Packard was lucky to be alive since the whale could have closed its mouth out of fear and broken Packard’s back or neck.