A humpback whale appeared to "swallow" a kayaker and spit him out last weekend off the coast of southern Chile in a dramatic incident that was caught on camera.
The kayaker, Adrian Simancas, was out on the water with his father near the town of Punta Arenas when the whale surfaced. It scooped him in its mouth for a few seconds before releasing him.
"I thought I was done for, that I was dead," Simancas said in a video obtained by USA TODAY. "It was like three strange seconds down there, and now, looking back, I reflect on what mistakes led me there."
"I felt like I was being lifted, but it was clearly too strong to be a wave," said Simancas, according to reporting from Reuters. "When I turned, I felt something blue and white passing close to my face, like on one side and above. I didn't understand what was happening. Then everything... I went under and thought I had been swallowed."
Simancas was unharmed in the incident, which was caught on video by his father in another kayak.
"I turned on the camera and heard a wave crash behind me, loudly. When I turned, I didn't see anything," said his father, Dell Simancas, according to Reuters reports. "So that was the only moment of real fear because I didn't see Adrian for about three seconds. Then he suddenly shot out without the pack raft, and a second later, the pack raft emerged, and then I saw the fin of something."
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Though a humpback can easily fit a human inside its mouth, it is scientifically impossible for the whale to swallow a human once inside, according to a 2021 article from National Geographic, which cites an interview with Nicola Hodgins of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a UK nonprofit.
According to National Geographic, a humpback whale's throat is roughly the size of a human fist, and can only stretch to about 15 inches in diameter.
Sources: AP, Reuters, Yahoo
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