The kayaker swallowed by a whale is not the first to survive such an experience

A humpback whale swallowed a kayaker, trip to his father in the Strait of Magellan, in southern Chile, before spitting him unscathed.

A story worthy of the adventures of Pinocchio. Adrián Simancas, 24, was paddling with her father on February 8 off Punta Arenas, Patagonia, when he met a humpback whale. Without preamble, the cetacean suddenly arose water, the mouth open, before swallowing the kayaker. The latter barely had time to react that he was already engulfed. In a few moments, the animal disappeared, carrying the young man in a fine rain.

His father, located a few meters away, filmed the scene, helpless. He waited for three terrible seconds before seeing Adrián emerge from the water, unharmed. “When I turned around, I saw nothing, I didn’t see Adrián. This is the only time I was really afraid, because I didn’t see it for about three seconds. And all of a sudden, he came out, “said Dell Simancas to the Chilean TVN channel. Relieved, he shouted to approach: “Come on, come on, quietly”. Still in shock, his son executed himself in silence, grabbing his kayak with one hand. Fortunately, the young man returned safely to his father. And once back on land, he didn’t even need medical care. A miracle.

A phenomenon on social networks

“There, I feel something hitting me behind, I thought it was a wave, but it was too strong and when I turn around, I feel something fleshy who touches my face, I see blue and white and it happens towards me from above, on the side […] The next minute, I sank. I thought I was eaten, “said Adrián Simancas, guest of the Chilean TV show Buenos dias in todos. The Venezuelan appeared to be smiling, without any stigma of his misadventures.

“It seems that the kayak was in the middle of the whale food zone,” Maria José Pérez, marine biologist at the University of Chile, told AFP. This is why we see her “emerging on the surface on the side, her mouth open, as if she were food,” she continued. The episode was filmed and posted on social networks by his father, Dell Simancas, also aboard a kayak at the time of the facts. Since its publication on Wednesday, the accident has been shared many times by Internet users from around the world.

“I was in his mouth for 30 to 40 seconds”

Such a story had already occurred in 2021 when a lobster fisherman from Massachusetts had been briefly “swallowed” by a humpback whale, before being rejected, alive. “I was in her mouth closed for 30 to 40 seconds, before she goes up to the surface and spit out. [eu] Blues everywhere, but no broken bone, “said Michael Packard to the local newspaper Le CAPE COD Timesafter being briefly hospitalized.

But unlike Adrián Simancas, the fisherman was then about 13 meters deep when the cetacea swallowed him. First thinking of a shark attack, he quickly realized that he felt no pain. “And then I realized:” Oh my God, I’m in the face of a whale … and she tries to swallow me, “he reported to the microphone of CBSN Boston. The fiftieth anniversary already saw the thread of his life when the mammal finally spit it. And if such a scenario seems improbable, a witness, named Josiah Mayo, then accredited the words of Michael Packard. This son of a whale expert was also responsible for calling the rescuers after the drama.

But these rare times that humans find themselves in the mouth of a whale are often accidents. In reality, these cetaceans are unable to “eat” them. “If the immense mouth of a humpback whale, which can measure about 3 meters long, can easily contain a human being, it is scientifically impossible that a whale really swallows it”, specifies a specialist in an article of National Geographic. “The throat of a humpback whale is roughly the size of a human fist and can only widen about 38 cm to receive a more substantial meal,” added the magazine.