He was swallowed by a humpback whale, but lives to tell

Friday morning was sunny and clear, and the water was calm off Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Michael Packard was diving in search of lobsters.

His longtime fishing partner, Josiah Mayo, followed him on his fishing boat, the J&J, stalking him through the bubbles rising from Packard’s breathing apparatus to the surface of the water.

The men had already caught 100 pounds of lobster, and Packard was about 100 feet underwater, looking for more.

Suddenly the bubbles stopped, Mayo said.

Then the water started to stir violently.

A creature surfaced and, for an agonizing split second, Mayo thought it was a White shark.

“I immediately thought it was the shark encounter that, unfortunately, we had been preparing for years,” he said in an interview on Saturday.

Then he saw the caudal fin and the head of a whale.

Moments later he saw Packard leave flying some water.

“‘He tried to eat me,'” Packard retorted, according to Mayo.

The whale, a humpback whale, moved away as Mayo and another fisherman helped Packard get back to the boat.

According to Charles Mayo, father of Josiah Mayo and a scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, a town of about 3,000 people on the tip of Cape Cod, these terrifying encounters are practically never seen.

There is a story of a woman who was dragged by a calderon (a kind of dolphin).

There are reports of sperm whales who attacked after being harpooned.

And in 1896, The New York Times published on unlikely story of a whaler found in the belly of a whale in October 1891 and saved alive.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Charles Mayo said of the Packard experience.

However, the encounter is explainable, he said.

The whale, possibly a juvenile between 7 and 10 meters that had previously been seen swimming in the area, was likely diving for food when inadvertently caught to Packard with his big mouth.

Humpback whales spend much of their time in this part of New England, searching and gulping small schools of fishsaid Jooke Robbins, director of the Humpback Whale Studies Program at the Center for Coastal Studies.

They rush in quickly, open their mouths, and use their beards to “filtered” water before swallowing the fish, Robbins said in a statement.

When the whale realized it had caught something that wasn’t its typical prey – in this case an unsuspecting lobster – it responded that a human would accidentally ingest a fly, Charles Mayo said.

“Of course we don’t eat anymore,” he said.

“We spat out the food and some of us left the restaurant.”

Tales of Packard’s ordeal hit Twitter on Friday.

That afternoon, Packard told reporters it was his second dive, going to the bottom of the sea, when he felt “this truck hits me“.

His first thought was that a white shark had attacked him, but when he didn’t feel his teeth pierce him, he realized he was inside a whale.

“It was completely inside; it was completely dark,” Packard told the Cape Cod Times.

“I said to myself: there is no way out of here, I’m done, I’m dead. I only thought of my children: They are 12 and 15 years old. “

Packard said he was in the mouth for at least 30 seconds, wondering if he was going to run out of air or be swallowed.

He said he had fought against the whale’s mouth and could feel its powerful muscles pressing against him.

Then he saw a light and felt the whale’s head shake and its body thrown into the water.

Josiah Mayo said he called 911 and an ambulance met them at the dock.

Then he called Packard’s wife.

“Hello, Mike is fine,” Mayo recalls.

“You’ll have to take care of it.”

Packard, who was released from the hospital on Friday, had a lot of bruises but he didn’t have any broken bones.

On Friday afternoon, he wrote a happy note on a Provincetown community Facebook page thanking the Provincetown Rescue Team for helping him.

“I was diving with lobsters and a humpback whale tried to eat me,” he wrote.

“I was in his closed mouth for about 30 or 40 seconds before rising to the surface and spitting on me. “

Mayo said he initially believed Packard broke his leg.

Although he’s scared for his friend, he said he felt relieved to know the season might be over.

But once he learned that Packard hadn’t broken any bones, Mayo said he knew the two would meet again soon.

Packard promised the same to reporters.

He said, “As soon as I’m healed, I’ll go back to the water.”

Jack Begg contributed to the investigation.

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