I’m the kayaker who was ‘swallowed’ by a humpback whale – this is what it felt like

A kayaker has told of the terrifying moment he thought he was about to be swallowed and eaten by a humpback whale in southern Chile.

Adrian Simancas, 24, was paddling off the coast of the Patagonian city of Punta Arenas on Saturday with his father when the huge whale leapt out of the water, scooping Adrian and his kayak into its mouth.

‘At first, I thought I had died,’ he says of the moment he was taken into the whale’s jaws. ‘It was a lot of terror, I thought no, there’s nothing I could do.’

After being released by the whale and coming to the surface, his thoughts turned to his father – and the fact he was now capsized in icy waters.

‘I was afraid that something would happen to my him, and that I would not reach the shore in time and would die of hypothermia,’ he says.

The incident was caught on camera and posted on social media by his father, Dell Simancas, who can be heard shouting ‘Relax! Relax!’ to his son.

The father and son were using inflatable kayaks they had been carrying in rucksacks during a previous trek on dry land.

Just a few seconds later a stunned Adrian bobbed to the surface and shouted ‘I thought he’d swallowed me!’

Speaking after the incident Adrian said: ‘I thought it had already eaten me and swallowed me. But of course, I felt that maybe it was a killer whale.

‘We had been talking about orcas shortly before, so I had that in my head, but when I got out I understood that, of course, it was probably out of curiosity that the whale had approached me or maybe to communicate something.’

His dad told the network: ‘When I turn around, I don’t see Adrian, my partner, my son. I don’t see him and I don’t see the boat. So I was surprised and worried.

‘Then I see him come to the surface and after him the boat comes to the surface. I see a body part of, a body part of a body of the whale.’

Adrian’s father Dell, a 49-year-old Venezuelan-born anaesthetist who lives in Chile, added: ‘I turned round and I couldn’t see Adrian and that was the only real moment of panic.