(WHDH) — A commercial lobster diver who got caught in the mouth of a humpback whale off the coast of Cape Cod took some time to share his wild survival story with a popular late-night talk show host this week.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday, 56-year-old Wellfleet native Michael Packard recalled, “I was struggling, and banging, and kicking, and just thinking there is no way I’m going to get out of this unless he decides to let me go…I’m dead.”
Packard told 7NEWS on Friday that he was on his second dive of the day, about 45 feet below the surface when he encountered the whale.
“I was just about at the bottom and I felt this truck hit me and everything just went dark,” he said. ” I could just feel hard stuff all around me and I just thought, ‘Did I just get eaten by a white shark?’ and I said, ‘No I don’t feel any teeth,’ and I said, ‘Oh my God I am in the mouth of a whale. With his mouth shut.”
Packard said he was in the whale’s mouth for 30 to 40 seconds.
He was taken to Cape Cod Hospital for bruising but was lucky to get away without any broken bones.
Kimmel presented Packard with a DVD of the movie “Free Willy” and a T-shirt with writing that said “Kiss me. I got swallowed by a whale.”
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