What Happens to Your Body if You’re Swallowed by a Whale?
US fisherman was gulped and spat out.
Pinocchio proposes an exciting insight into what happens when one gets swallowed by a whale. But, it was, of course, a fictional version.
But, today, owing to experts and several real-life examples, like that of diver Micheal Packard, we can deduce what happens.
Several conclusion can be drawn through numerous incidents recorded. Packard’s experience definitely not the first one, as Rainer Schimpf also spent suffocating moments inside a Bryde’s whale in South Africa. Moreover, last year kayakers were caught found themselves in the mouth of a humpback in California. In 2019, a tour operator in South Africa’s Port Elizabeth Harbour shared the same experience.
Packard’s story
Packard is a commercial lobster diver who grabs the migrating lobsters off the sandy shelf. Lobster divers play with danger every day, as strong currents push them — some even meet the white tooth sharks and lose the battle of life.
Recently, the Lobster diver in Provincetown, Massachusetts, somewhere around 8 a.m. Friday, entered the ocean for the day’s second dive. Little did he know that a whale would engulf him.
While diving, he felt something nudge, and just moments later, everything went dark. He was inside. Packard could feel no traces of wounds, making it evident that he wasn’t getting suffocated inside the belly of something deadly.
However, his struggle did not last long, as he saw the light when the whale moved in different directions, shaking its head. After spending nearly thirty to forty seconds inside the whale, Packard was back in the water.
Packard’s sister saw him getting flung back to the sea by the whale. She called the radio to shore, and then a Provincetown Fire Department ambulance carried him to the Cape Cod Hospital. The guy got a few injuries, like he dislocated his knee and damaged a few soft tissues.
Packard getting inside a humpback whale and then getting spat back indicates a lot about what happens if one gets into a whale’s mouth. If it were to be a white sperm whale, which interestingly divers see all the time, Packard would not have been alive.
What do the whale experts have to say about it?
A whale falls under the list of some giant world creatures; thus, it’s easy to assume they can consume a person.
But, interestingly, 90% of the whale species, including humpback whale, feed on small sea creatures because they do not possess teeth rather ‘special’ bristles.
What so special about them? Well, only the fact that they are composed of keratin protein and arranged in plates, just like any comb. Moreover, the bodies of humpback and most other species are not fashioned to crunch or munch human bones.
According to the experts, the majority of the whale species would not swallow anything that it is not supposed to eat.
If anything accidentally meets the fate of the whale’s residence, then one would be thrown back in the waters. The whales do not consume humans — they rarely swallow them, primarily by accident.
However, it is scientifically only possible for the sperm whale to swallow something the size of a person.
Terror of a sperm whale
They are the toothed whales who feed on both the fish and squid. Owning a large throat makes them technically capable of swallowing a human — in fact, a 46 feet long colossal squid was once found inside the stomach of a sperm whale.
With a large oesophagus, 65-foot-long Sperm whales can swallow humans, but the cases are rare — like “a billion to one thing”. Why? Because most people do not get to see them in a lifetime.
Primarily residing in the open ocean, these diving animals are widely spread across the world at the debts of over 10,000 feet.
What if one lands inside a toothed whale?
Now, what if one’s body gets swallowed by a sperm whale? What happens in that “once in a billion case”? Well, the sperm whale, with one’s sharp teeth, which are as long as an average chef’s knife, lacerates a victim.
But that is just the start of a horrible journey. If a person survives those knives, one will experience an awful feeling of getting squeezed through the esophagus — a tight, dark, and slimy space.
In addition, lack of oxygen and high methane content in the spot will give a person lightheadedness.
Down the throat to the eternal destination
The sperm whale will further use its muscles to force a person further down to begin the dissolving process in the stomach.
A person laden in hydrochloric acid from the throat will land in one of the four stomachs — a place where darkness finally ends. Still, it’s ironically the beginning of one’s eternal darkness.
The reason for a streak of light is some bioluminescent squid that fell whale’s prey earlier. In that glow, a person will get a chance to see one’s own body disintegrating.
The stomach acids will do all sorts of messy things with a person’s body before it gets moved around by the whale digestive system. Then, the system will maneuver the body to other stomach and gut, breaking it down further — from skins to organs to muscles.
It is time for one’s body to reach the anus, from where it will get ejected. Wondering what the person’s state would be like by that time? One will become just the pile of bones, with flesh completely disintegrated.
So next when you find yourself thinking about the fate of those inside the mouth of a whale, just pray it wasn’t a sperm whale.
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