A Lobster Diver Survives after being Swallowed by a Humpback Whale: ‘I was completely inside’

• Lobster diver Michael Packard was swallowed by a humpback whale off Cape Cod, surviving a rare marine accident.
• Trapped for 30-40 seconds, he was ejected when the whale surfaced, escaping with only bruises.
• Experts link the incident to the whale’s lunge feeding on sand eels, highlighting risks in busy marine zones.

Imagine plunging into the chilly Atlantic waters, your breath steady through scuba gear, as you hunt for lobsters amid swirling schools of fish.

That’s the scene veteran diver Michael Packard set for himself on a crisp June morning in 2021, unaware that his day would veer into the realm of biblical tales.

Off the sandy shores of Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown, Cape Cod—a hotspot for whale watching tours and teeming marine life—Packard descended to about 45 feet, where visibility stretched roughly 20 feet through the 60-degree water.

Schools of sand lances and striped bass darted around him, a common sight in these nutrient-rich waters where humpback whales migrate annually from their winter breeding grounds in the Caribbean to summer feeding areas in the Gulf of Maine.

Suddenly, without warning, a tremendous force slammed into him. Everything went pitch black.

“I felt this huge bump and everything went dark,” Packard later recounted, his voice still laced with disbelief at the sheer improbability of the moment.

He initially suspected a great white shark attack, a legitimate fear for anyone in these shark-infested waters where seal populations draw predators.

But as he groped in the void, there were no razor-sharp teeth tearing into him, no excruciating pain from bites—just an overwhelming pressure from all sides, as if the ocean itself had clamped down.

Realization dawned in the darkness: he was inside the mouth of a humpback whale, a colossal creature that can grow up to 50 feet long and weigh as much as 40 tons.

These gentle giants, known for their acrobatic breaches and haunting songs that echo across oceans, feed by lunging open-mouthed through dense schools of small fish and krill, filtering thousands of gallons of water through baleen plates.

In this case, the whale—likely a juvenile based on descriptions—was targeting sand eels, tiny fish that form massive bait balls in Cape Cod’s coastal zones.

Packard, at 56 years old and a lifelong resident of Wellfleet with decades of experience in commercial lobster diving, became an unintended catch in this feeding frenzy.

Trapped in what felt like a fleshy cavern, Packard struggled against the whale’s powerful mouth muscles squeezing around him.

His scuba regulator remained in place, allowing precious breaths, but his mind raced with terror.

“Oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth and he’s trying to swallow me,” he thought, pondering if he’d be dragged deeper into the beast’s esophagus, which, though narrow at about the size of a grapefruit, could potentially cause fatal compression.

Visions of his family flashed before him—his wife, his two sons aged 12 and 15 at the time—convincing him this was the end.

“There’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead,” echoed in his head amid the chaos. The pressure built, bruising his body as the whale swam, oblivious to its human cargo.

Above the surface, aboard the boat Ja’n J captained by his crewmate Josiah Mayo, alarm bells rang.

Mayo, scanning the water, witnessed an explosive eruption: the whale breaching dramatically, its head shaking violently side to side.

In that instant, Packard was hurled free, tumbling through the air before splashing back into the waves.

“I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water. I was free and I just floated there. I couldn’t believe … I’m here to tell it,” he described, the relief palpable even in retelling.

Mayo, son of renowned whale expert Charles “Stormy” Mayo from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, initially mistook the surfacing whale for a great white shark due to the thrashing.

But as the scene clarified, he spotted Packard bobbing in the water and hauled him aboard.

Radioing frantically to shore, Mayo sped the vessel to the Provincetown pier, where emergency responders from the local fire department immobilized Packard on a stretcher and rushed him to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.

Doctors there assessed soft tissue damage across his limbs and torso, but remarkably, no fractures or internal injuries—just extensive bruising that would sideline him temporarily from the demanding work of lobster harvesting, which involves hand-picking crustaceans from rocky crevices while battling currents and cold.

This survival miracle quickly rippled through the tight-knit fishing community of Cape Cod, where Packard is regarded as one of the last traditional lobster divers, a profession dwindling due to regulations and environmental shifts.

His resilience isn’t new; a decade earlier, he endured a harrowing plane crash in Costa Rica, surviving two nights in the jungle with severe abdominal wounds after the pilot and others perished.

Before that, as an abalone diver on the West Coast, he faced down great white sharks, losing friends to the apex predators.

Yet this whale swallowing incident stood apart, blending raw fear with an almost mythical quality.

As word spread, marine scientists weighed in, demystifying the ocean peril while amplifying its rarity.

Humpback whales, protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act since 1972 and known for their migratory paths that bring thousands to New England waters each year, aren’t aggressive toward humans.

Their feeding strategy, called lunge feeding, involves accelerating to engulf prey in a single gulp, often with mouths agape up to 15 feet wide.

“The whale was trying to swallow sand eels, and suddenly found he had a diver in his mouth while dragging in a huge volume of water,” explained Philip Hoare, a whale expert, noting the discomfort for the animal too—it likely surfaced to “vomit” out the obstruction to avoid choking.

Jooke Robbins, director of Humpback Whale Studies at the Center for Coastal Studies, added that such encounters are unprecedented, as whales typically sense large objects but can miss smaller ones in bait-dense areas.

Charles Mayo echoed this, comparing it to accidentally inhaling a fly during a meal, and praised Packard’s composure in managing his air to prevent a deadly embolism from rapid pressure changes.

Packard’s sister, Cynthia, shared the family’s shock, relaying Mayo’s account of the whale flinging her brother like discarded debris.

“Thank God, it wasn’t a white shark. He sees them all the time out there,” she said, underscoring the everyday risks of this marine encounter zone.

In the aftermath, Packard spent weeks recovering, but his spirit remained unbroken.

By the following year, he was back in the water, his story immortalized in a 2023 documentary film that delves into the psychological toll of such a near-death experience, featuring underwater footage and interviews with witnesses.

Watch: Jimmy Kimmel Interviews Man Swallowed By a Whale

Fast-forward to early 2025, and echoes of Packard’s ordeal resurfaced when a similar humpback whale incident occurred off the coast of Chile, where a man was briefly engulfed during a feeding lunge.

Packard, upon seeing viral footage, felt a surge of validation. “I’m vindicated,” he remarked, connecting his survival story to this new chapter in human-whale interactions amid rising ocean tourism and fishing overlaps.

Environmental factors, like climate-driven shifts in prey distribution, may be increasing these rare collisions, prompting calls for enhanced diver awareness and whale tracking technologies in busy marine highways.

Yet, as Packard gears up for another season of lobster diving in the same treacherous waters, one question lingers: what unseen forces lurk beneath the next wave, waiting to turn an ordinary plunge into an extraordinary test of human endurance?