Topics: Nature, World News, Animals, Sport
A kayaker has described the moment he was ‘swallowed by a whale’ as his father watched on in horror and managed to record the incident.
A young man was kayaking the waters in in Bahía El Águila, south of Punta Arenas in Chile, when a whale apparently accidentally swallowed him and his kayak, according to local reports in 24Horas.
Miraculously, not only did Adrian Simancas survive but his father managed to record the ordeal and keep surprisingly calm as he watched his son disappear beneath the waves.
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Recalling the terrifying incident, Adrian said: "I saw something between blue and white that passed close to my face and it was like on one side and above me. I didn't understand what was happening and then I felt like I was drowning.
"I thought it had eaten me," he added.
The pair were sailing in the bay of the Magallanes region when the apparent humpback whale submerged with its mouth open and swallowed Adrian before spitting him back out.
His father, Dell Simancas, tried to help his son and used a rope to tow him to the shore, all while keeping him calm.
Dell added: "I didn't see Adrian for three seconds and I got scared. When I turned around I didn't see anything, I didn't see Adrian. That was the only real scary moment I had, because I didn't see him for like three seconds. And suddenly he just shot out."
The footage shows Adrian gently kayaking on the water when the giant mammal pops its head out of the water and the man disappears beneath the waves.
Seconds later, Adrian appears, followed by his yellow kayak, which he could be seen gripping onto.
In the video, his father is shouting instructions to Adrian, telling him to 'calm down' and 'grab the boat' while the whale makes another appearance before bobbing back beneath the surface.
"Calm down, calm down, I'm coming," he says to his son as he paddles towards him and hands him a rope.
Adrian then says to his father: "I thought [it] had swallowed me."
Despite the harrowing moment, the duo managed to escape without any injuries and consider themselves lucky to have avoided tragedy.
The news comes as a new YouTube simulation video shows just what would happen if a sperm whale was to swallow you whole - and fail to spit you back out afterwards.
Zackdfilms, renowned for his educational and oftentimes terrifying simulation videos, explains you would certainly die - and in a pretty gruesome way, too.
The narrator said: “If you were swallowed by a sperm whale you would be squeezed down its massive throat. You’d continue down its esophagus and into a series of stomach chambers that are filled with digestive acids.
"These acids would immediately start breaking down your body but even if you managed to avoid the acid, the lack of air inside the whale would quickly cause you to suffocate.”
With this in mind and as one Twitter user wrote in response to Adrian's story: "If I get swallowed by a whale and then spit out, tranquillo is NOT what I'm gonna be."
