He estimates he was in the whale's mouth for about 30 seconds, but continued to breathe because he still had his breathing apparatus in. 'I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water,' Packard recounted. Packard, who is an experienced diver, started to think about his wife and his 12 and 15 year old sons, and began to struggle inside the beast's mouth until, he said, he saw a light and the whale started shaking his head side-to side. 'And I thought to myself OK, this is it - I'm finally - I'm gonna die.' and he's trying to swallow me,' Packard told WBZ-TV following the encounter. 'I realized, oh my God, I'm in a whale's mouth. Packard said he thought he had been attacked by a shark, but when he realized he did not feel any sharp teeth and was not in pain, he began to figure out what had happened.

'For a guy to be in the middle of that giant school of fish corralled by a whale doesn't make sense.' It's a first-ever that this would happen,' said another lobsterman.Īlthough humpback whales can grow to 40 tons, their throats are too narrow to swallow a human, experts say. 'People who are in the fishing industry, and people who know whales, are finding this hard to believe. Experts say being eaten by a humpback whale is extremely rare, with one suggesting the whale made a mistake when it sucked Packard in and quickly spat him out (file photo)

Cape cod lobster diver humpback whale