Michael Packard Wiki – Michael Packard Bio
Michael Packard is a Cape Cod lobster diver who is safe Friday, following a fluke encounter with a humpback whale that nearly made him the leviathan’s lunch.
He was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts, Friday when the capital cetacean caught him unawares.
“I got down to about 45 feet of water, and all of a sudden, I just felt this huge bump, and everything went dark,” Packard told CNN affiliate WBZ. “And I could sense that I was moving, and I was like, ‘”Oh, my God, did I just get bit by a shark?'”
“Then I felt around, and I realized there were no teeth, and I had felt, really, no great pain,” Packard said. “And then I realized, ‘Oh, my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth. I’m in a whale’s mouth, and he’s trying to swallow me.'”
Age
He is 56 years old.
Incident Details
Packard, 56, from Wellfleet, Massachusetts, first thought he had been attacked by a shark, expected in the Cape Cod area, but noticed he did not feel any teeth.
He recounted how he was about 45ft down on Friday morning when he said he “felt this huge bump, and everything went dark.”
He was inside the 60,000lb humpback whale’s mouth for about 30 seconds but said he could still breathe using his equipment.
Mr Packard said: “All of a sudden, he went up to the surface and just erupted and started shaking his head. I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water.
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“I was free, and I just floated there. I couldn’t believe – I’m here to tell it.”
Condition
Packard was pulled out of the water by a crewmate, rushed ashore, and taken to a nearby hospital. In the end, Packard said, he was “all bruised up,” but whole.
Biologist Jooke Robbins, the director of Humpback Whale Studies at Provincetown’s Center for Coastal Studies, said the unusual encounter was most likely an accident.
“We don’t see humpback whales doing anything like this normally,” Robbins told CNN. “I think it was a surprise to all involved.”
Packard, an experienced diver, told WBZ that he still had his breathing apparatus in the whale’s mouth.
“One of the things that went through my mind was just, ‘Oh, my God, what if he does swallow me, and here I am, I’m breathing air, and I’m going to breathe in this whale’s mouth until my air runs out?'” he said.
He said he thought about his children and wife before he ended up being rescued by a crewmate in the boat and was later treated at Cape Cod Hospital.
