It would be easy to assume that anyone swallowed by a massive animal wouldn't live to tell the tale.
But 24-year-old Adrian Simancas not only was swallowed and survived, but his hair-raising experience of truly biblical proportions was captured on a video filmed by his father that has since gone viral.
Simancas and his father were kayaking through the Straits of Magellan off the coast of Punta Arenas, Chile, in inflatable kayaks in the late afternoon on Saturday, February 8.
The windy conditions made kayaking a bit more exciting than usual, but things took a frightening turn when a humpback whale emerged from the water, swallowing Simancas and his kayak.
Thankfully, as seen in the video, Simancas and his boat rose to the surface roughly three seconds later.
It is believed that the humpback whale mistook Simancas for a fish, part of his usual diet, and upon realizing its mistake, spit the young kayaker out.
After coming to the surface, Simancas's father, Dell, a 49-year-old anesthetist, instructed his son to "stay calm" and "not get back in the boat" and swim towards the shore.
Dell eventually made his way to his son, who joined his father on his kayak.
As reported by The Telegraph, Simancas told a Chilean television show that while he did see what turned out to be the humpback whale from his kayak, he didn't quite have time to process what it was, or what was happening to him as he was being swallowed.
"I saw something blue and white passing close to my face, like on one side and on top, but I didn’t understand what was happening."
"The next minute I sank. I thought I had been eaten."
Dell said his nerves began to rise upon his son's disappearance, but those fears were thankfully short-lived.
"I turned round and I couldn’t see Adrian and that was the only real moment of panic."
“He disappeared for about three seconds and then shot out and that’s when I calmed down because I saw he was safe.”
Amazingly, Simancas was completely unharmed after the experience and did not require any medical attention.
Of course, during the experience, Simancas believed that the worst had happened, or was at least going to happen, and not just to him, but to his father.
"At first when I thought I had died, it was like, of course, a lot of terror."
"Because I thought no, no, there was nothing I could do."
"And when I got out and started to float there I was really afraid something would happen to my dad too, that we wouldn't have reached the shore in time and I would get hypothermia."
Simancas, who initially thought it was a killer whale that swallowed him, also gave the humpback whale the benefit of the doubt, believing that it was not its intent to eat him, but was perhaps trying to tell him something.
"I felt that maybe it was a killer whale."
"We had been talking about orcas shortly before, so I had that in my head."
"But when I got out, I understood that, of course, it was probably out of curiosity that the whale approached me, or maybe to communicate. something."
As the video began to make the rounds on X, viewers of the video couldn't believe what they were seeing, comparing Simancas to Jonah of the Old Testament, and others impressed by how calm Dell managed to stay as he took the video.
Jooke Robbins, the director of humpback whale studies at the Centre for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, has noted that when humpback whales are feeding, their mouths tend to open like a parachute and obstruct their vision, allowing for unintended and unwanted objects to end up in their mouths.
Robbins has also stressed that incidents involving swimmers, divers, and, yes, kayakers are exceedingly rare, close to "one in a trillion."
Even so, Simancas isn't the only known survivor who's been swallowed by a humpback whale.
The same thing happened to lobster diver Michael Packard in 2021 off the coast of Provincetown, MA.
Unlike Simancas, however, Packard was in the whale's mouth for close to 40 seconds and ended up with a dislocated knee when the humpback whale finally spit him out.
Packard at first believed he may have been swallowed by a great white shark, until he realized he couldn't feel any teeth.
Be that as it may, Packard still believed his death was imminent, and can't believe he is able to share his experience.
"I realised: ‘Oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth and he’s trying to swallow me'."
"'This is it, I’m going die’."
"All of a sudden he went up to the surface and just erupted and started shaking his head."
“I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water."
"I was free and I just floated there."
"I can’t believe I’m here to tell it.”
One would think this experience would have been more than enough to scare Simancas from ever going in the ocean again, let alone in a kayak, but he and his father are apparently already planning their next kayaking trip.
Where, one imagines, both will be a bit more cognizant of their surroundings.
