LUCKY ESCAPES
Two terrifying whale encounters, plus a plummeting paratrooper
MODERN-DAY JONAH
Michael Packard, a lobster fisher from Provincetown, Massachusetts, got a good deal more than he bargained for when he jumped off his boat, the Ja’n J, for a routine dive to check lobster pots in June. At a depth of about 45ft (14m), Packard, 56, said he “felt this huge bump and everything went dark.” Initially he thought he had been attacked by a great white shark, but he could feel no teeth, at which point he realised, “Oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth and he’s trying to swallow me. This is it; I’m going to die. Then all of a sudden he went up to the surface and just erupted and started shaking his head.” Packard said: “I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water. I was free and I just floated there. I couldn’t believe… I’m here to tell it.” Packard’s shipmate, Josiah Mayo, saw the whale spit him out, hauled him back onto the boat and took him to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, where he was treated for a dislocated knee and soft tissue damage.
Whale expert Peter Corkerton of the New England Aquarium said that humpback whales are “gulp feeders [which] slurp up as much as they can and then swallow it down.” He believes the whale had no intention of swallowing Packard and just scooped him up by accident with a mouthful of fish, and that humans actually being swallowed by whales is something that “just never happens”. He also says there is evidence that humpbacks can be altruistic towards humans, which would explain why the whale swam to the surface before spitting Packard out. Wildlife photographer Rainer Schimpf, who was scooped up by a humpback whale off Port Elizabeth in South Africa in 2019, was also taken to the surface before the whale ejected him.
Not everyone was convinced by Packard’s story; a doctor at Hyannis Hospital who was not involved in his treatment said that if Packard really had been swallowed by the whale and hurled toward the surface, he would have had more injuries, including hearing loss due to the rapid change in pressure: “He reportedly ascended from a 45-ft depth in 20 to 40 seconds and didn’t have any evidence of barotrauma?” An anonymous fellow local lobster fisher was also sceptical, saying that in the 44 years he’d worked the area, “it’s a first-ever that this would happen.” huffingtonpost.co.uk, 11 June; BBC News, 12 June; yahoo.com, 13 Jun; Jerusalem Post, 13 June 2021.
WHACKED BY A WHALE
An Australian teenager was fighting for his life after his encounter with a humpback whale off the coast of New South Wales. The 18-year-old was out fishing with another man when the humpback breached and crashed down onto their boat. The craft was extensively damaged but managed to limp back to land where paramedics were waiting for the teenager, who had suffered spinal injuries and a suspected fractured skull. John Moore, a former charter boat operator, said: “Situations like this are very, very rare. Whales are incredibly intelligent and aware of the areas around them.” Times, 9 June 2021.
NEAR DEATH FROM ABOVE
A British paratrooper on an exercise with the US military in California escaped with minor injuries even though his parachute failed to open on a jump. The unnamed soldier was carrying out a High-Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jump, a technique used by special forces, near Camp Roberts in Atascadero, but lost control as he neared the ground. Local residents saw the parachutist spiralling in the air as he hurtled towards a house and crashed through the roof, smashing into the kitchen in a burst of insulation and roofing material. “Came through the roof, through the trusses and there’s not that much damage in the house. It’s amazing,” said Linda Sallady, the homeowner’s mother. “It’s mostly the ceiling, the sheetrock. He missed the counters, appliances, everything.” Photos of the scene taken by neighbours who rushed to the house showed a hole in the tiled roof of the home and a soldier in SAS uniform dazed amid the debris in the kitchen. Police said the SAS man was “conscious, but stunned, with complaints of pain but no visible serious injuries.” He was taken to hospital for a check-up and treated for minor injuries. guardian.co.uk, 13 July; Eve. Standard, 12 July, 2021.