Man Recounts Horrifying Experience After Getting Swallowed by Humpback Whale

Veteran lobster diver Michael Packard went into the water for his second dive of the day at a little before 8 a.m. on Friday. His vessel, the "Ja'n J," was off Herring Cove Beach and fleet of boats catching striped bass surrounded his vessel.

Michael Packard and the Humpback Whale

The temperature of the water was a balmy 60 degrees and the visibility around 20 feet. Authorized commercial lobster divers literally pluck lobsters off the sandy bottom, and as, 56-year-old Packard dove down Friday morning, he noticed schools of sand lances and stripers swimming by.

The ocean food chain was in full proof, but around 10 feet from the bottom Packard immediately knew what it truly felt like to be a member of that chain. In something actually biblical, Packard was ingested whole by a humpback whale.

"Suddenly, I felt this big shove and the next thing I knew it was totally black," Packard recalled Friday afternoon after he was release from Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. "I could feel I was moving, and I could also feel the whale compressing with the muscles in his mouth."

Packard thought he was inside a great white shark at first, but he couldn't feel any teeth and he hadn't gotten any obvious injuries. It quickly hit him that he had been consumed by a whale. Packard said he was completely inside and it was totally black, he said he thought to himself, 'there's no way I'm getting out of here. I'm done, I'm dead."

Conversation Between Packard's Sister and the Crewman

He said all he could think of was children - they're 12 and 15 years old. Outfitted with scuba gear, he was struggling and the whale started shaking its head so that Packard could know he didn't like it. He evaluated he was inside the whale for 30 to 40 seconds before the whale eventually surfaced.

Cynthia Packard, Packard's sister, talked with crewman Josiah Mayo, who disclosed some of the details to her. Packard said Mayo witnessed the whale burst to the surface, and that at first he thought it was a great white shark.

"There was all this action at the top of the water," Packard said Mayo told her. Then the whale threw her brother back into the sea. Mayo picked him up, called by radio to shore and instantly went back to the Provincetown pier.

How Humpback Whale Eats

A Provincetown Fire Department ambulance carried him to Cape Cod Hospital. Cynthia Packard said: "Thank God, it wasn't a white shark. He always sees them out there, he must have thought he was done."

Mayo described the humpback as being medium-sized, Michael Packard said, and Robbins had a suspicion it was a young feeding on sand lance.

Robbins said when a humpback opens its mouth to eat, it billows out just like a parachute, obstructing the forward vision of the animal, which is why most of them become entangled in fishing gear in their jaws and mouth.

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