Dad records terrifying footage of his son being swallowed whole by whale

A father captured the heartstopping moment his son was swallowed then spat out by a whale on camera.

The pair were out kayaking in the Strait of Magellan, the bit of sea between the bottom point of South America and Antarctica.

Dell Simancas and his son Adrian were paddling around in the water when he saw what he thought were 'pretty waves', the father told CNN.

He thought the waves 'seemed exciting' and then heard 'what sounds like a strong wave hitting behind me', turning to look Dell was surprised that he couldn't see his son anywhere.

24-year-old Adrian Simancas was swallowed by a whale, but soon spat back out again (Dell Simancas)

Fortunately, just a few seconds later, Adrian came back up to the surface as the humpback whale that had swallowed him and his raft spat them back out again.

Dell shouted at his son to 'grab the boat' so he'd have something to hang onto in the water, and despite being eaten by a whale, it hasn't dimmed Adrian's desire to be out on the sea.

In the video Adrian told his dad 'I thought it swallowed me', and it basically did.

"When I turned around, I felt on my face like a slimy texture; I saw colours like dark blue, white, something approaching from behind that closed… and sank me," Adrian said to CNN.

"At that moment, I thought there was nothing I could do, that I was going to die, I didn’t know what it was."

Fortunately for the 24-year-old, the next thing he felt was his life jacket pulling him up 'then two seconds later I was back on the surface and then started understanding what happened'.

Humpback whales do not eat humans, and luckily for Adrian it would be really difficult for one of them to actually swallow him completely rather than just gobble him up and spit him back out again.

Despite the encounter the father and son's enthusiasm for kayaking in the sea remains undimmed (Dell Simancas)

They're pretty gentle creatures so this appears to have been a maritime misunderstanding that's ended with everybody alive and well.

Others who have been swallowed by whales have recounted what a terrifying experience it can be, like Michael Packard who was searching for lobsters off the US coastline when a humpback whale ate him.

He was in its mouth for a lot longer than Adrian and thought 'this is it, I'm going to die' before moving around in the whale's mouth in the hope that it would let him go.

Fortunately after about 30 to 40 seconds of being in the animal's mouth it did release him, and at the time experts suggested that the man was unlucky enough to end up in the path of a feeding whale.