A Lobster Diver in Massachusetts named Michael Packard took a trip to the hospital after an encounter with a Humpback whale off the coast of Provincetown on Friday morning.
“All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard told the Cape Cod Times.
Packard was completely inside the animals mouth for about 30 seconds before the whale rose to the surface and spat him out.
Humpback whales are not aggressive and there’s never been a documented occurrence of one hunting or actually consuming a person. “People direct dive on them (humpbacks) in the tropics, not here. In those places I’m not aware of a single incident of people having problems with them,” said Charles ‘Stormy’ Mayo, a senior scientist and whale expert at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.
More than likely, the whale accidentally swooped up Packard while attempting to feed on small fish or even sand lice nearby where he was diving. While extremely rare, several similar encounters have been video recorded and posted in recent history. Anyone who has been whale watching knows that you can’t always tell when, where, or how the whales are going to show up. The US Coast Guard warns all mariners to not approach within 300 feet of any whale. The fact is they are very big and can be unpredictable.