‘A Modern Day Jonah’: Was A Cape Cod Lobsterman Really Swallowed By A Whale?

It was a fantastical story, biblical even.

According to Michael Packard, a Cape Cod lobster diver, he was, like Jonah, swallowed by a whale.

Here’s his story, according to the Cape Cod Times.

“His vessel, the ‘Ja’n J,’ was off Herring Cove Beach and surrounded by a fleet of boats catching striped bass. The water temperature was a balmy 60 degrees and the visibility about 20 feet. Licensed commercial lobster divers literally pluck lobsters off the sandy bottom, and as Packard, 56, dove down Friday morning, he saw schools of sand lances and stripers swimming by.”

But then something happened.

“All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled Friday afternoon following his release from Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”

Initially, Packard thought he was inside a great white shark, but he couldn’t feel any teeth and he hadn’t suffered any obvious wounds. It quickly dawned on him that he had been swallowed by a whale.

“I was completely inside; it was completely black,” Packard 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.”

Packard, 57, said he was inside the whale for 30 to 40 seconds before it surfaced, shook its head side to side and “the next thing I knew I was outside,” back in the water. Packard was released from the hospital hours later, mostly unscathed.

News agencies across the world have covered the story, but a new report cast the supposed incident in new light.

“At least one doctor at the Cape Cod hospital that treated the lobsterman who claims he was nearly swallowed by a humpback expressed skepticism Saturday,” The New York Post reported.

“’He reportedly ascended from a 45-foot depth in 20 to 40 seconds and didn’t have any evidence of barotrauma?’ scoffed the Cape Cod Hospital emergency room doc.”

Barotrauma is “caused by rapid or extreme changes in air pressure, especially affecting enclosed cavities within the body such as the middle ear (otic barotrauma), the sinuses (sinus barotrauma), and the lungs (pulmonary barotrauma),” MedicineNet reports. Said the Post: “A person traumatized by such an encounter should expect more serious injuries, such as hearing loss, because of the sudden change in water pressure from that depth, noted the physician.”

Others were also skeptical. “‘People who are in the fishing industry, and people who know whales, are finding this hard to believe,’ a Bay State lobsterman, who has fished the area for 44 years, told The Post. ‘It’s a first-ever that this would happen.'”

The lobsterman added: “For a guy to be in the middle of that giant school of fish corralled by a whale doesn’t make sense.”