Diver reveals what happened when he was inside the whale which almost swallowed him
A diver who was nearly swallowed by a whale has told of what happened inside the creature’s mouth.
Incredible photos of the moment Rainer Schimpf, 51, found himself scooped up by the Bryde’s whale off Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in February emerged this week.
“The whole event when the whale grabbed me took about two seconds,” Mr Schimpf told Sky News in the UK.
“So once I felt something had grabbed me on the hip, I knew instantly it was a whale.
“My next thought was that… it can’t swallow me because it’s too big, so that was kind of [an] instant relief.
“Also I realised that the pressure didn’t increase it actually stopped at a certain point.
“So my next thought was that the whale may take me down into the ocean and release me further down. I instantly held my breathe.
“Obviously he realised I was not what he wanted to eat so he spat me out again.”
The moment was captured by photographer Heinz Toperczer, who was with the diver on board a nearby ship, said he noticed the water churn up before “a whale appeared and grabbed him (Mr Schimpf)”.
The largest measured Bryde’s whale was 15.51m off Saldanha Bay, South Africa in 1977.
Fortunately for Mr Schimpf, Bryde’s whales don’t eat people either and largely feast on fish, planktonic crustaceans and cephlapods.
