Diver was 45 feet underwater when he suddenly felt a 'huge bump'—then realised he was inside a whale's mouth
The underwater holds mysteries that are far beyond comprehension. The wildlife, treasures and the abyss, though researched, still hold a vague and unfathomable reality. A lobster diver named Michael Pakcard was given a glimpse of this visual during an intense experience while underwater in Herring Cove Beach, Massachusetts, Cape Cod Times reported. As he made his way through the blue sea, he suddenly felt a “huge bump,” evoking one of his worst fears. In the pitch darkness as he tried to make sense of what just happened, he made the most terrifying realization. 
The man had been doing his second dive of the day, 45 feet underwater, when he was caught off guard, per NPR. “All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled. Initially, he thought it was a shark and was convinced that this was the end. In that moment of fear and trauma, he looked around to get some clues. "I felt around and I realized there were no teeth,” he said, adding that he wasn’t hurt or injured in any way. "And then I realized, 'Oh my God, I'm in a whale's mouth. And he's trying to swallow me,” the diver said. While Packard was still inside with all his gear and equipment, undoubtedly the whale, too, realized something was off.
“I could sense I was moving and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth,” he said. He didn’t know what to expect apart from the fact that the whale was trying to swallow whatever was causing the inconvenience. Jooke Robbins, director of Humpback Whale Studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, explained that the species is not usually aggressive and it seemed to be a misunderstanding. “This would have to be a mistake and an accident on the part of the humpback,” Robbins said.
Iain Kerr, the chief executive officer of the Massachusetts-based conservation nonprofit Ocean Alliance, noted that humpback whales can “take in 10 SUVs worth of water and fish and then everything else,” while trying to eat. He added, “It's a one-in-a-million shot that [Packard] just got rolled into the mouth." For Packard, at that moment, it didn’t matter if it was a mistake or not. “I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys,” he mentioned. In a Facebook post, the man mentioned that he was in the whale’s mouth, seconds away from death, for nearly a minute. "It was happening so fast. My only thought was how to get out of that mouth," he said, per CBS News.
Fortunately, his story had a winning twist. The whale began shaking its head abruptly. The next thing Packard knew was that he was back in the water. "And I was free, and I just floated there. I couldn't believe I got out of that,” he remarked. Packard’s sister, Cynthia Packard, spoke with crewman Josiah Mayo, who spotted the terrifying sight and helped Packard to the shore thereafter. The crewman told her there was a lot of “action” in the water moments before the whale could spit Packard out. Getting a hold of the diver, he raced to the shore, where he contacted help immediately. A Provincetown Fire Department ambulance took the diver to Cape Cod Hospital. “Thank God, it wasn’t a white shark. He sees them all the time out there,” Cynthia remarked. Packard suffered a few injuries but no broken bones and is super grateful to be alive.
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