A lobster diver is opening up about his terrifying experience after he spent nearly 40 seconds inside the mouth of a humpback whale.

On Friday, 56-year-old Michael Packard, 56, was on the coast of Provincetown, Mass., as he was picking up lobsters 35 feet underwater during the early morning hours. At that point, he claims the whale swallowed him.

“All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove, and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recently told the Cape Cod Times. “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”

At first, he said he thought he was stuck inside a shark, but then he realized that since he didn’t feel any teeth, then it had to be something else. “I was completely inside; it was completely black,” Packard said. “I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys — they’re 12 and 15 years old.”

“There is no time for fear in a situation like that,” Schimpf said. He somehow managed to retain the knowledge that whales like this are gentle giants and that the whale whose mouth he was currently in actually meant him no harm.

Packard estimated he spent about 30 seconds tr apped inside the mammal before it surfaced and spat him out.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Packard said. “I couldn’t believe I got out of that. And I’m here to tell it.”

“I jumped aboard the boat. We got him up, got his tank off. Got him on the deck and calmed him down and he goes, ‘Joe, I was in the mouth of a whale’ he goes ‘I can’t believe it, I was in the mouth of a whale Joe!’

After escaping the clutches of the whale, Packard was grabbed out of the water by a crewmate and then rushed ashore to be taken to hospital in the area. When all was said and done, Packard stated he was “all bruised up,” but fully intact.

Jooke Robbins, a biologist, and director of humpback whale studies at Provincetown’s Center for Coastal Studies, told CNN the strange encounter was most likely an accident.

“We don’t really see humpback whales doing anything like this normally,” Robbins said. “I think it was a surprise to all involved.”

After going to the hospital to get checked out, doctors eventually released from Cape Cod Hospital on Friday. Unfortunately, they determined that he suffered soft tissue damage, but luckily, he didn’t have any broken bones after the incident.

“These sentient giants of the ocean bear humans no malice”. “This is one more reason to protect and nurture them and all the creatures of the sea.”