'This is how you die': US man recalls being swallowed by humpback whale

The lobsterman said he was diving off the coast of the northeastern state of Massachusetts when the humpback whale trapped him in its

A US lobster fisherman recalled his encounter with the humpback whale a year after he claimed he was swallowed by the marine animal and lived to tell the tale. Speaking to local daily Cape Cod Times, Michael Packard gave a detailed account of how he entered the mouth of the whale and came out bruised but unbeaten from the scary incident.

A US lobster fisherman says he was scooped into the mouth of a humpback whale and yet lived to tell the story.(AFP)

Packard said he was diving for lobster off the coast of the northeastern state of Massachusetts when the humpback whale trapped him in its mouth before coughing him back up. He said he was descending to the bottom and and was about to reach the bottom when he “got slammed” by something “like a freight train”

“And then all of a sudden it went black and water was just rushing around me,” he said.

“I could feel pressure on my whole body, and I was moving through the water, like wicked fast.”

He said he “instantly knew I was in a whale and not a shark.”

After realising he was inside the whale's mouth, the fisherman said, he tried to to get out but to no avail.

“And, I'm thinking of myself, this is it, Michael, This is it. This is how you die. And I was hundred percent sure that I wouldn't get out of that situation. And it was, it was a done deal,” he said.

“And I thought about my kids and my wife and, um, and then he started going up or all of a sudden got to the surface and he started shaking his head and getting all erratic and then boom, fly out of his mouth,” he added.

However, experts and fellow seamen were skeptical about the encounter claimed by Packard last year. A doctor at the Cape Cod Hospital, where the Packard was treated, said that a person involved in such an encounter should expect more serious injuries, reported New York Post.

A fellow seaman told the Post that “people who are in the fishing industry, and people who know whales, are finding this hard to believe.”

“It’s a first-ever that this would happen. For a guy to be in the middle of that giant school of fish corralled by a whale doesn’t make sense,” the lobsterman, who was not named by the Post, added.