'I'm done, I'm dead': Man swallowed alive by humpback whale
A diver says he’s lucky to be alive after he was swallowed and spat out by a humpback whale.
Michael Packard, from Wellfleet in the US state of Massachusetts, wrote on Facebook he was lobster diving on Friday before he found himself inside the mouth of a whale.
“I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out. I am very bruised up but have no broken bones,” the 56-year-old wrote.
Mr Packard told Cape Cod Times he “felt this huge shove” before everything “went completely black” as he realised he was inside the whale.
"I thought to myself, 'there's no way I'm getting out of here. I'm done, I'm dead'," he told the paper.
He added he began shaking the whale's head from the inside to try to get it to spit him up which it did.
Mr Packard told WBZ-TV was “thrown in the air” and landed back in the water.
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“I couldn’t believe I got out of that,” he said.
Mr Packard was taken to hospital for treatment and has since been released.
Jooke Robbins, director of Humpback Whale Studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, said it was likely the whale swallowed Mr Packard by accident.
'How bad you could taste?'
On Facebook, Mr Packard’s tale was compared to something from Pinocchio.
“How bad could you taste? Just kidding. Thank god you’re safe,” one woman wrote.
One man joked he wanted to hear the whale's side of the story while another woman suggested he try his luck with a lottery ticket now.
“Wow. What a whale of a tale,” another man wrote.
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