WATCH: Man nearly swallowed by whale lives to tell the tale

An American lobster diver had a whale of a tale to tell Friday. 

If it wasn't for his miraculous survival, injuries, and his diving mate's account, Michael Packard's story would be impossible to believe. The commercial lobster diver was briefly swallowed by a humpback whale off the coast of Cape Cod. He shared the painful story with NBC and experts believe the rare encounter was probably an accident. 

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Packard was in about 13 metred of water when "I just felt this truck hit me and everything just went dark," he said. 

The first thought that crossed his mind was that he'd been eaten by a white shark but he soon realized that the creature didn't have any teeth. I said, "Oh my god, I'm in the mouth of a whale.'"

Josiah Mayo, Packard's crewmate, was driving the boat and following him on the dive.

"It was just a huge splash and kind of thrashing around," Mayo shared. "I saw Michael kind of pop up within the mess and the whale disappeared."

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Packard shared that he thought he was surely going to die. "This is how you're going to die. In the mouth of a whale." 

He wondered if he'd suffocate or be swallowed and thought about his wife and sons. "I just was struggling but I knew this was this massive creature, there was no way I was going to bust myself out of there," Packard recalled.

Suddenly, Packard saw light and realised that the whale had spat him out. 

"I was just laying on the surface floating and saw his tail and he went back down, and I was like, 'Oh my god, I got out of that, I survived,'" he said.

Watch the story below. 

Image Credit: Screenshot/Twitter