"And then boom! I f**king fly out of his mouth"

Despite not eating larger prey, humpbacks and other baleen whales seem to accidentally get bigger animals in their mouths quite often, sometimes including humans. Other whale-mouth incidents have include a Bryde’s whale that engulfed and spat out a tour guide off the South African coast.

“I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth,” he said. “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 — they’re 12 and 15 years old.”

The whale appeared to notice that it had bitten off more than it could chew, and started to try and “spit” Packard out.

“And then [the whale] started going up. All of a sudden it just got to the surface and he started shaking his head and getting all erratic… and then boom! I f**king fly out of his mouth. And I’m like, ‘Oh my god.’ But there I was just floating on the surface. And I was just looking up in the sky. I’m f**ked up, I know, but I think I’m going to live.”