Originally published at: Diver nearly swallowed by humpback whale | Boing Boing
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I don’t have any reason not to believe it but this is the kind of story that someone could just make up as a hoax.
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Yeah, but there were witnesses.
Plus the guy did go to the hospital.
Very hard to prove something like this without video (and why would there be video?) but I think he should get the benefit of the doubt.
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Also the kind of story that someone could suggest is a hoax without any reason.
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Dude also survived a plane crash 10 yrs ago…
“Ten years ago, while traveling in Costa Rica, he was a passenger in a small plane that crashed in the jungle, killing the pilot, co-pilot and a passenger. Packard sustained multiple serious injuries to his abdomen and upper body. The rescuers that found the remaining five passengers after two nights in the jungle said they wouldn’t have survived another night.” -Cape Cod Times
Fish story? Check
Plane crash story? Check.
Free drinks at most any Cape Cod bar? Check
Endless entertainment for his children, grand children, great grand children? Check
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Does this mean he is extremely lucky or extremely unlucky? Either way, if you see his name on your flight, take another plane.
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Witnesses to what? I don’t get the impression that anybody else actually saw him either be swallowed by the whale or coughed up by it.
Yeah, I think this is pretty much what it comes down to. There isn’t any reason not to believe him and he isn’t getting much out of it if he is lying. It’s a good story.
Via the Cape Cod Times piece : “Mayo (ship mate) saw the whale burst to the surface, and that he initially thought it was a great white shark.”
(I’ve got a family vaca on the cape later this Summer. I think that will be sticking close to shore this year.)
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Did you read the quote that was included in my post you’re replying to? I thought it was pretty clear but I’ll post it again:
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Okay, I guess I wasn’t reading that as the witness saying they they actually saw Packard come out of the whale’s closed mouth. I’m sure I was wrong.
And I guess I just assumed that a whale would need to use its mouth in order to “toss” a person, but hey, maybe it just used a flipper to toss him, which would honestly be just about equally impressive.
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Human tossing might be a thing with whales. 
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I’m not sure in a baleen whale how much danger there was in actually getting completely swallowed, as in down into the stomach. Their feeding process evolved for them to only eat small things like krill.
Still, it woulda freaked me out.
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and cause massive laceration. I mean (this is obviously conjecture on my part), but have you ever seen a humpie’s fins? covered in barnacles. any motion that made contact with a person that could “toss” them would leave shredded flesh.
barnacles be sharp, matey!
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PLEASE stop feeding the narrative that he was “almost swallowed.” The esophagus of a humpback whale is about 4 inches wide. He had a hell of an experience, but he was not in danger of being swallowed.
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All the whale tossing videos I can find involve orcas using their tales to toss prey, and a couple examples of humpbacks pushing young whales up out of the water more or less on their backs.
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I can hear the biblical writing staff arguing over the same thing.
“Come on guys, Jonah needs a story!”
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The term “orally imbibed” just doesn’t sound right. What would you call it?
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He wouldn’t have been swallowed, but the danger would have been drowning or being crushed by the whale’s massively muscular mouth. He said afterwards that he could keep breathing because he was still wearing his scuba gear, otherwise he might have drowned.
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