A Man Who Was Swallowed By A Whale Has Done A Reddit AMA And It Went As Whale As Expected

If you’re at all familiar with the best-selling book of all time, the Bible, then you probably know about the tale of Jonah and the Whale.

The story goes that a dude named Jonah gets swallowed by a “big fish” (aka whale) and somehow survives three days and three nights in its belly. Of course, it’s by The Grace Of God™️ and a whole lot of praying that Jonah was able to survive 72 hours in the huge fish with no water, oxygen, or food.

Well if you thought that was impressive meet Michael Packard, a lobster diver who was actually swallowed by a real-life humpback whale on Friday and somehow managed to live to tell the tale.

there has been a huge misunderstanding https://t.co/r7Sr08OtvX

— whalefact (@awhalefact) June 11, 2021

While checking one of his lobster traps in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Packard felt a “huge shove” before everything went “completely black”. First thinking he had encountered a shark, the lack of teeth and mammoth size of the animal quickly made the lobster diver realise he was inside a whale’s mouth.

Sure, Packard only lasted about 40 seconds in the whale’s mouth and not Jonah’s 72 hours, but being able to say a whale gobbled you up and you survived sure is an impressive story to tell.

Now, in celebration of being alive, 56-year-old Packard has taken to Reddit with the help of his son Jacob to answer everyone’s burning whale questions.

Naturally, people had a whole lot of questions about the biblical tale turned real-life horror movie, but Packard was happy to answer any and all queries that came up with nothing fazing the lobster diver. Which makes a lot of sense when you remember Packard just survived a near-death experience and was now knocking about Reddit for shits and gigs.

During the Ask Me Anything session, Packard answered a number of questions concerning what the inside of a whale’s mouth felt like.

When asked about the texture of a whale’s tongue, Michael Packard noted that because the whale’s mouth was full of water and as he was in a dry suit he couldn’t really tell whether it was “smooth like a dog or scratchy like a cat”.

Packard could, however, feel “the muscles of its mouth convulsing around” him, and “30-40 seconds” of feeling his “own body crashing against the water” was enough to leave the diver with some soft tissue damage where the whale clamped down on his legs.

The lobster diver also shared that he was eventually able to escape once “the whale managed to dislodge me by moving its head and tongue” but noted that it could’ve gone a lot worse. After momentarily losing his diving regulator, Packard realised he could’ve easily suffocated or drowned and admitted that his last thoughts were of his “wife and kids”.

While a scary experience, Packard did share that even if the whale wanted to, humpback whales have small throats so likely would not have even been able to swallow him whole anyway.

The reddit AMA with the diver who got stuck in a whale’s mouth is pure gold pic.twitter.com/FdQbhS1icj

— Liv Boeree (@Liv_Boeree) June 12, 2021

Beyond the nitty-gritty details of the whole “swallowed by a whale” experience, Packard revealed a whole bunch of wild bits of information like that he had survived a plane crash in Costa Rica by getting “flung out of the plane before it hit the ground”.

Packard also added that his second craziest diving story was finding a “corpse” with a “dead body” being the most interesting thing he’s found while lobster diving. Super casual, totally normal stuff.

“Don’t encounter [white sharks] often. A while back, I encountered the corpse of a missing person while diving, that is definitely up there with the crazy stories,” Packard shared. “It was a missing person, an active case. Stumbled upon it and got it found.”

Shifting away from the dark questions, Michael Packard did share that he thought Matt Damon would be a good fit for the eventual movie made about his life, in a Not-So-Good Whale Hunting moment. And, as expected, there were a few “yo momma” jokes flung around in jest.

 

But most importantly, Packard reckons that if he was faced with one whale-sized lobster or 100 lobster-sized whales, he could easily take on that single whale-sized lobster — and after his AMA, I don’t doubt that for a single second.

You can read the full Reddit AMA thread here.