Incredible video captures stunned kayaker spat out by humpback

A kayaker in Chilean Patagonia* had a heart-stopping encounter when a humpback whale* briefly swallowed him before spitting him out.

The incredible moment was captured on camera and has quickly gone viral on social media.

Last Saturday, Adrián Simancas was paddling alongside his father, Dell, in Bahía El Águila near the San Isidro Lighthouse in the Strait of Magellan when a massive humpback whale suddenly surfaced.

In an instant, the whale engulfed* Adrián and his bright yellow kayak, briefly holding him before releasing him unharmed.

The moment was captured by Dell, who was just metres away, as he encouraged his adult son to stay calm.

“Stay calm, stay calm,” he can be heard saying after his son was released from the whale’s mouth.

“I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me,” Adrián told The Associated Press.

He said that his true fear set in only after resurfacing – dreading that the massive whale might harm his father or that he himself would succumb* to the icy waters.

“When I came up and started floating, I was scared that something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn’t reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia*,” Adrián said.

However, despite the shock, both father and son returned to shore uninjured.

Situated roughly 3000 km south of Chile’s capital Santiago, the Strait of Magellan is a renowned* tourist destination in Chilean Patagonia, attracting adventure seekers from around the world.

Despite the summer season, temperatures in the region remain cool, with lows dipping to 4 degrees Celsius and highs rarely surpassing 20 degrees.

While it is exceedingly rare for whales to attack humans in the wild, the number of whale fatalities due to collisions with cargo ships has risen in recent years and has become a growing concern over the past decade.

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GLOSSARY

• Patagonia: southernmost region of South America, in Argentina and Chile, extending from the Andes to the Atlantic covering an area of about 777,000 sqkm
• humpback whale: large, migratory baleen whale found around the world, including the east coast of Australia
• engulfed: swallowed up
• succumb: give in to something, yield, surrender, give up
• hypothermia: dangerous drop in body temperature to below 35 degrees Celsius
• renowned: very well known and greatly admired for certain qualities or achievements

EXTRA READING

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How do whales sing underwater?

QUICK QUIZ

1. Where did the encounter happen and near which lighthouse?
2. What was Adrián doing at the time?
3. How far south of Chile’s capital Santiago did the near-miss take place?
4. How low do summer temperatures dip in the region?
5. What has caused an increase in whale fatalities in the past decade?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Summarise the article
A summary is a brief statement of the main points of something. It does not usually include extra detail or elaborate on the main points.

Use the 5W & H model to help you find the key points of this article. Read the article carefully to locate who and what this article is about, and where, when, why and how this is happening. Once you have located this information in the article, use it to write a paragraph that summarises the article.

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science

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Compare your summary with a classmate. Did you both include the same information or are your summaries quite different? Discuss your choices and then work together to create a final condensed version of the story that you both agree tells the important parts that a reader would need or want to know.

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Curriculum Links: English

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Make a list of all the openers in the article. Pick three that repeat and see if you can replace them with another word, or shuffle the order of the sentence to bring a new opener to the front.

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