After claiming he was swallowed by a humpback whale and spat out in less than a minute, a US lobster fisherman has lived to tell the tale. Michael Packard told the local newspaper Cape Cod Times that he was diving for lobster off the coast of Massachusetts when a humpback whale grabbed him in its mouth before coughing him up.

"I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out," the 56-year-old wrote on Facebook hours after. "A humpback whale tried to eat me. I am very bruised up but have no broken bones," he said.

Packard believed he was inside a big white shark at first, but he couldn't feel any teeth and had no wounds. “I was entirely within; everything was pitch black. ‘There's no way I'm getting out of here,' I thought to myself. 'I'm finished, I'm dead.' Packard told the Cape Cod Times, "All I could think about was my boys, who are 12 and 15 years old."

He was released from Cape Cod Hospital on Friday afternoon, just hours after the incident.