Humpback whale briefly traps young kayaker in its mouth in Chile | Hacker News Reader

Humpback whale briefly traps young kayaker in its mouth in Chile

apnews.com

66 pointsvinnyglennon69 comments

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I'm calling it now. Captain Dissolution will debunk this.

Yeah there's something slightly suspect - I've been fooled too many times and alarm bells are going off with this one.

"Getting eaten by a whale" is a pretty long standing hoax topic it seems. James Bartley being just one example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bartley

The historicity is always suspect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah

I can't find it now but there is another news report that explains how it's physically impossible for this whale to swallow something that big. At most it could hold a person in its mouth before spitting it out.

I'm not sure that, from the perspective of a non-english-speaking kayaker, I would make a huge distinction between the English words "swallow" and "gargled".

> At most it could hold a person in its mouth before spitting it out

Which is what we see in this video so I don't understand why you bring that up here.

Unless he’s started drinking heavily recently, I think he is still Cpt. Disillusion

...what is there to debunk?

His father's lack of any reaction at all is entirely possible, but makes it seem suss to me. On the other hand if you did fake it, certainly you'd have some reaction there. So paradoxically it making it seem suss, makes it seem more likely to be real? Gah, leveling.

I think the lack of reaction is plausible: shock/surprise and a naturally-calm demeanor. There's no sense in shouting if there's no one to hear you. He only starts shouting when his son is visible.

(I have been calm in emergencies in the past, so I know I don't "freak out")

If it were me, I probably would have quietly said "fu.." under my breath while I just sat there either waiting for debris to pop up or try not to get eaten myself.

How come every time there's a new fear unlocked, it's adjacent to the sea. Drowning, rogue waves, being eaten by a whale, none of it is a good time.

There is still much about the ocean we do not know.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceano...

Thats a very egoistical point of view - every ex-passenger of the titanic was for a moment part of a beautiful ecological bloom on the ocean floor. DeCaprio was the best crab human-carpaccio

Here's a new one for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_viruses

"Viruses are the most abundant biological entity in marine environments. On average there are about ten million of them in one milliliter of seawater."

If enough people get seawater up their nose, it's just a matter of time before there's a crossover event :)

Shall we tell him about the Portuguese man o' war‘s 100 feet tentacles, or spontaneous methane clathrate eruptions?

old home remedy if you suffer from a blocked nose/sinuses: "inhale" sea-water through your nose to clear it all up.

Nasal irrigation/sinus rinsing. There are accessories that make it more comfortable too. I think salt water in particular is just because non-isotonic water inside your nose hurts and irritates the membranes.

You can get sterile saline solutions for this purpose, in case you don't want "natural" seawater. Yes, too little (or too much) salt in the water will be painful.

You can just dissolve a teaspoon of salt to half a litre of any warm fresh drinkable water (tapwater is fine if it’s even reasonably good quality). Should be hundreds of times cheaper than sterile solution :)

Please sterilise it first.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-to-know-about-anoth...

Point taken.

> CDC officials, citing a 2021 survey, say about one-third of U.S. adults incorrectly think tap water was free of bacteria and other microorganisms. Nearly two-thirds say tap water could be safely used for rinsing their sinuses.

> The CDC recommends using boiled, sterile or distilled water.

Flesh eating bacteria? Yeah, no, thanks.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-to-know-about-anoth...

I may be biased by the quality of tap water where I live. Pharmacies around here definitely advise just using warm tap water, although they do of course also sell more sterile stuff too.

Sinus rinsing is one of those things that gets recommended a lot without thought. For many conditions, it's great relief, but on the flip side, if you have e.g. inflamed sinuses or the like, it can make your condition considerably worse. As always, it's best to consult your doctor, because there's more nuance to human health than handy tips online would let on.

Take more pills and don’t ask questions.

Considering how common is swallowing and aspirating seawater is, how significant is this risk?

We have a microvirome so the mere existence of viruses is not necessarily a bad thing in itself

I cannot give statistics but I think viruses in the sea are for marine life and mostly they don't target humans. Also we are already inhaling lots of viruses.

> viruses in the sea are for marine life

Yes of course.

The Wikipedia article says "Most of these viruses are bacteriophages ... Bacteriophages are harmless to plants and animals ... Viruses are the main agents responsible for the rapid destruction of harmful algal blooms"

Likely next to none can infect land mammals. Such viruses would not have a way to replicate to large numbers in seawater, not in land mammals.

Based on the historical record of humans at the sea, and the folk belief that seawater is healthy, not a significant risk at all.

Ingesting bacteriophages could even be beneficial if you have bacterial issues.

If they were likely to crossover into mammals, they would probably have crossed over into seals by now.

To be fair, being eaten by a whale is a pretty old sea-based-fear. I think Jonah was knocking around the place around 2800 years ago...

“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.”

- Joseph Conrad

Cthulhu fhtagn.

As the video shows, being eaten by a whale is not something to be concerned about.

> being eaten by a whale is not something to be concerned about.

Humpback whale, sure, what with their infamously tiny throats[0]. Killer whale? Probably a different experience.

[0] I was going to link to QI here but that was a blue whale. Same kind of sized throat though.

It could happen on accident, but to my knowledge killer whales have never done that to a human in the wild. Killer whales have most definitely attacked and killed humans while in captivity. It's also extremely obvious that it was deliberate behavior. Unless you work at SeaWorld, the risk is very low of this happening.

I was instantly reminded of "The Mariner's Revenge Song", one of the greatest story telling songs ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sw61oITuts

The guy could be caught in the humpback’s mouth for a few seconds instead of actually being fully swallowed. It’s hard to say with the video.

We need you, Captain!

Try looking at the video frame by frame. The kayak disappears from one frame to the next while the whale remains mostly stationary.

Isn't that just the kayak going underwater because the jaw of the whale pushes it downwards?

I just did after reading this comment - that's not what I saw.

He better get the nickname Jonah now

People will definitely use this to affirm their faith.

grew up in a fishing comunity, where to call someone a "jonah" was an ultimate condemnation and thus labeled, such a person could never work on the boats which was fair, as crews lived, and , died together if something wasn't done right, and certain types of mistakes could doom a whole ship , and many fisherman, to this day, never learn to swim, as the north atlantic will kill you faster than even a non swimer can splash around on the surface. I am sure that this video is producing a lot of bemused and pithy comentary on the shore, down home."oh! the lord thunderin, woulds you look at that there you"

I read somewhere that some fishermen didn't learn to swim as they thought it would only prolong the agony. That seems a strange attitude. Surely, the longer you can survive, the more chance you have of being rescued or finding some wreckage to cling to?

If you fall into the north atlantic with just basic clothing on, you're extremely unlikely to survive unless rescue is made immediately and promptly. It is possible, but your time is very limited.

If you have one of those survival suits, your endurance is greatly increased however. I also think they help keep you floating. My understanding is most crews wear them while working on the deck

Obviously it depends how far north you are and what time of the year.

This guy was quote far North and survived 40 minutes, but it isn't clear what time of the year it happened: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/40-minutes-...

Most people get confused by the two different phenomenon that will kill you when falling in cold water:

- the thing people have in mind is hypothermia (or more accurately, if you don't have a life jacket drowning because your body can't stay afloat because hypothermia paralyzes your muscles), but as your link point out, it's a pretty slow process: it will depend on water temperature and body composition (the slimmer the worse) but it will still always take at least 15-20 minutes in the least favorable case.

- the second factor, which is much faster to kill, is Cold shock response: basically if you fall into cold water, you're very likely to have incontrollable breathing while underwater, and will drown near instantly. That's why more than half the people falling in cold water will be dead in less than a minute. But if you survived this first phase (very likely if you have a life jacket) then you'll be fine for tens of minutes afterwards.

Always wear a life jacket when on a boat even if you're an Olympic swimmer.

Did an Instagram search for “humpback swallows kayak”. Seems this result has the footage.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGB_UVlz4la

The footage is in the article.

Before you open the article and wait though an interminable video ad, no, the footage is not from the point of view of the kayaker getting swallowed.

You really don't have to wait even a single second if you use an ad blocker. I can recommend uBlock Origin.

Why are you browsing the web without an ad blocker?

Why are you tolerating a web that requires an ad blocker?

I don't tolerate it and still use an adblocker. What else can I do?

Is there a different Internet that I can use?

Yes! Well, if you're lucky enough to live in New York (NYC Mesh), Germany (Freifunk) or Spain (Guifi), you can actually access alternatives to the internet :)

It's not the network that serves ads, it's the crappy servers serving ads connected to it. There are other servers which may be less crap. YMMV.

I thought whale mouths had fibers that only let plankton in leaving no proper big hole. Bad to know I was wrong.

What you describe is the entrance to their esophagus. That's why although the kayaker found himself in whale's mouth, the animal could not swallow him and had to spit him out.

To add to this, what you're both describing is true of Baleen Whales, which are filter feeders (which includes the Humpback Whale that this story is about, as well as Blue Whales and others).

But it's not true of all types of whale - Toothed Wales (such as Beaked Whales and Sperm Whales) are apex predators which much larger throats allowing them to eat larger prey.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toothed_whale

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baleen_whale

So a proper title for the piece would be "A humpback whale briefly suckles on kayaker".

The whale must have been aware of the size of things it can swallow? Maybe the whale read Pinocchio and it wasn't just by accident? Maybe the whale was playing? Maybe it was a game about dominance? Maybe it was sexual for the whale?

Baleen whales swallow a high amount of water (and whatever comes with it) and filter outwards, keeping the krill inside.

Is his name Jonah?

I bet the whale thought this was funny.

with all the cameras in the world, this one managed to grab a clip in clean non pixelated high def?!?!

I call AI shenanigans.. Now, all those UFO clips in low def and terrible pexelation, THOSE are real!

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