On the morning of June 9, a commercial lobster diver was seriously injured in an exceedingly rare type of incident. He was caught in the mouth of a humpback whale. The whale was feeding near a beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Michael Packard, 56, was taken to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts. He had broken one leg, his sister Cynthia Packard said.
"He was swallowed by the whale," Cynthia Packard said in a phone interview. "He was in his mouth for about 20 seconds."
Packard spoke with crewman Josiah Mayo, who relayed some of the details to her. Mayo said the whale burst to the surface, and at first he thought it might be a great white shark.
"There was all this action at the top of the water," Packard said Mayo told her. Then the whale released her brother.
The call came in a little before 8 a.m. Eastern time that a diver had suffered serious injuries to the legs after interacting with a whale. Provincetown Fire Chief Michael Trovato said he did not go to the scene, but he confirmed that he heard the diver had been injured by a whale.
Tough Job
Commercial lobster divers are tough. In Provincetown, they swim in cold waters to grab lobsters off a sandy underwater shelf. The lobsters are caught when they are migrating to somewhat warmer water. They emerge from a nearby deep channel and pause a while in order to get used to the increase in temperature. That's when the divers grab them.
A crewman onboard the boat follows the bubbles of the diver below as he or she drifts with the strong current. It's a spot that is full of danger. Commercial lobster divers have seen more than their share of close calls and tragedy.
"Thank god it wasn't a white shark — he sees them all the time out there," Cynthia Packard said. "He must have thought he was done."
Are Humpback Whales Aggressive?
Charles "Stormy" Mayo is a senior scientist and whale expert at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. He said what happened to Packard is very rare. Humpbacks are not aggressive animals, and he said he feels this was likely an accidental encounter while the whale was feeding on fish.
"People direct dive on them [humpbacks] in the tropics, not here. In those places I'm not aware of a single incident of people having problems with them," Stormy Mayo said.
Packard's crewman Josiah Mayo is Stormy Mayo's son.
"Michael [Packard] is a smart guy and an exceptional diver," said Stormy Mayo. "For that to happen to him, you can be sure he did everything he was supposed to do."
