Surviving the Unimaginable: The Man Who Escaped the Jaws of a Whale

Adrián Simancas was kayaking in the chilly waters of the Strait of Magellan, off the Chilean coast, when the unexpected happened. After two hours of paddling, a huge humpback whale surfaced and pulled him under.

“I saw dark blue and white before something slimy touched my face,” the 24-year-old recalled. “I braced myself for impact, but it felt like being hit by a wave.” In a strange twist of fate, Simancas had ended up inside the whale’s mouth. He closed his eyes and held his breath.

“It felt like being in a whirlpool, spinning around,” he described. In those moments, he thought he might not make it out alive. “If it had eaten me, I would’ve died. There was nothing I could do.”

Fortunately, the terrifying experience was brief. Simancas soon felt himself being lifted by his life jacket. He emerged unharmed but in shock. His father, who was paddling alongside him, filmed the incident with a 360-degree camera mounted on his raft.

The video quickly went viral, with many users humorously comparing Simancas to famous figures like Pinocchio and Jonah. However, the incident also sparked concern among scientists about misconceptions regarding whale behavior.

María José Pérez Álvarez, a marine biologist, explained that humpback whales have small throats and eat only small fish and krill. “They cannot swallow a human,” she clarified. Humpbacks do not have teeth; instead, they use large plates to filter their food. “It wouldn’t have been able to bite him either,” she added.

Despite his luck, Pérez Álvarez warned that getting too close to these massive animals can still be dangerous. “A humpback can grow to around 18 meters long. Even an accidental encounter can lead to injury.”

Kayaking expert Guillermo Meza expressed similar concerns. He felt that Simancas and his father ventured too far into open waters. “I would have never gone that far on an inflatable raft,” he said. He emphasized the importance of staying at least 100 meters away from whales during kayaking tours. “If they come too close, we just stay still,” he noted.

According to Chilean law, boaters must maintain a distance of at least 100 meters from whales. However, Simancas assured that neither he nor his father saw the whale coming. “The sea was calm. We were at the end of the bay when the whale suddenly lunged at us,” he explained. “It was totally unexpected.”

Simancas had been kayaking for about a year, enjoying the combination of trekking and paddling in a foldable raft. Celebrating his father’s birthday, they had set off from Fin de Camino, one of the southernmost points in the world, aiming for a small island.

After the encounter, with one paddle damaged, the father-son duo made their way back by tying their rafts together. Simancas admitted the experience changed his view of nature. “I feel blessed to have had a second chance,” he said, acknowledging the lessons he learned about safety. He plans to stay closer to the shore in the future.

As for the rest of the season, Simancas has decided to hold off on more rafting adventures. “I’ll wait until next year,” he said, reflecting on his close encounter with nature.