A kayaking trip turned into a scene straight out of a movie when 24-year-old Adrian Simancas was nearly swallowed whole by a massive humpback whale off the coast of Punta Arenas, Chile. The unbelievable moment, caught on camera, shows the whale surfacing from the deep, engulfing both Simancas and his inflatable kayak in one enormous gulp.
One second, he was paddling alongside his father, Dell, in the choppy waters of the Magellan Strait, and the next, he vanished into the whale’s open jaws. But just as quickly as he disappeared, he was spit back out, flung into the freezing sea.
“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,” Simancas told a Chilean TV station. “The next minute I sank. I thought I had been eaten.”
Watching in horror, his father, a 49-year-old anesthetist, initially panicked when he couldn’t see his son. “He disappeared for about three seconds and then shot out, and that’s when I calmed down because I saw he was safe,” Dell recalled.
The terrifying encounter happened around 3 p.m. last Saturday as the father-son duo kayaked in the Magellan Strait, a crucial waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The two had been using lightweight inflatable kayaks they’d carried in their backpacks while trekking on land earlier in the day.
Experts believe the whale likely mistook Simancas for a school of fish, a key part of its normal diet. Fortunately, his father, who had been filming the trip, kept his cool and immediately gave his son clear instructions: “Stay calm, don’t get back into the boat, head for the shoreline, I’m coming.”
As Dell paddled toward him, the whale disappeared beneath the waves, leaving the stunned kayakers alone. “Grab my rope, grab my rope. If we head for the shore, everything will be fine,” he reassured his son before steering him to safety.
Despite the near-death experience, the pair are already planning their next kayaking adventure—though with a few more safety precautions this time.
While rare, this isn’t the first time a human has ended up inside a whale’s mouth. In 2021, veteran lobster diver Michael Packard found himself swallowed by a humpback whale off Provincetown, Massachusetts. He spent about 40 seconds inside before being spat out, suffering a dislocated knee.
Marine experts describe the odds of such an event as “one-in-one-trillion.” Humpback whales, which can grow up to 50 feet long and weigh around 36 tons, feed primarily on krill and small fish, usually using bubble nets to trap their prey. Because their mouths balloon out as they lunge feed, they temporarily lose their vision—making incidents like this a freak accident rather than an attack.
For Simancas, the experience was surreal, but he walked away completely unharmed, needing no medical treatment. And while it’s a story few would believe without video proof, he now has an unforgettable tale of being swallowed—and thankfully, spit back out—by one of the ocean’s giants.