A lobster diver working in Provincetown has recalled the terrifying moment he was swallowed by a Humpback whale…
Michael Packard, an experienced lobster diver from Massachusetts, was working off Herring Cove Beach from his boat “Ja’n J,” when the terrifying incident occurred.
The fifty-six-year-old was diving, just like any other day, when “all of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled.
At first, he thought he might have been attacked by a great white shark, adding: “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”
But after noticing he hadn’t suffered any obvious injuries, such as bite marks, and loss of blood, he realized he must have been swallowed by a whale.
“I was completely inside; it was completely black,” Packard said. “I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys — they’re 12 and 15 years old.”
According to Packard, who gave a press release a year after the nightmare, he estimated that he was inside the whale’s mouth for just less than a minute before it surfaced and propelled him from its mouth.
“I saw light, and he started throwing his head side to side, and the next thing I knew I was outside (in the water),” he said of the terrifying ordeal.
Packard’s crewman, Josiah Mayo, also shared what he saw at the time with Packard’s sister, Cynthia Packard. She recalled that he told her “there was all this action at the top of the water.”
At first, he believed it was a great white shark that had attacked Packard.
“Thank God, it wasn’t a white shark. He sees them all the time out there,” Cynthia Packard said. “He must have thought he was done.”
Luckily, Packard survived the nightmare, with “soft tissue damage” being the worst of his injuries.