One Provincetown man is extraordinarily lucky to be alive after an animal encounter in June of 2021. Michael Packard is a licensed commercial lobster diver who entered the water off Herring Cove Beach for his second dive of the day on a June Friday morning.
The 56-year-old was about 10 feet from the bottom when something downright terrifying happened. "All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard said just after being released from the Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”
Luckily, the sea creature was a humpback whale, not a great white shark, which is what Packard first suspected.
“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.”
The story is like something straight out of an action movie. But thankfully, humpback whales are known as gentle giants. They don't typically enjoy human snacks.
Packard was inside the whale for about 30 to 40 seconds, he says. He started struggling as forcefully as he could and he could tell the whale didn't like it. After what likely felt like a lifetime, the whale surfaced.
“I saw light, and he started throwing his head side to side, and the next thing I knew I was outside [in the water],” said Packard.
Amazingly, Packard wasn't seriously injured in the encounter. He only suffered some soft tissue damage. While most people would never go back into the ocean, he says he will be back to diving as soon as his body is healed.
Clearly, Packard is a highly skilled diver. And he also knows that humpback whales aren't dangerous. It was definitely an error on the part of the whale. Dr. Iain Ker, who has been studying the whales in that area for decades, says it was likely as freaked out as Packard.
"I've been in this business for 30 years," the marine biologist said. "And this is the second time I've heard of it happening." He pointed out that Packard and other divers frequent the area because it's brimming with marine life. "It's a highly productive area," he said. "Basically, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
While this incident is absolutely astonishing, Packard has been through a tremendous amount before. He has survived being dragged out to sea by a strong current which meant he had to tread water for hours before being rescued. He's also lost friends to great white sharks, and 10 years ago while traveling in Costa Rica, he survived a plane crash and two nights in the jungle.
Clearly, this whale messed with the wrong guy. For Packard, it seems like just another incredible tale that luckily, he lived to tell.
