A New Hampshire fisherman whose boat capsized due to a jumping whale has spoken out about the terrifying experience, detailing the moments before and after the shocking incident that was captured on video.
Ryland Kenney, who was forced to dive into the water to avoid the whale, appeared on “America’s Newsroom” along with Colin Yeager, one of the teenagers who helped rescue him, to talk about his reaction to the incident and why he reacted the way he did.
“I was in fight or flight mode and I tried to get off the boat as fast as I could because the minute I heard the whale rumbling its engine I knew the boat was going to sink,” Kenny said Friday. “So I jumped horizontally over the side just to get away from it all. When I hit the water … it was about 55 degrees so I kind of went into temperature shock and it was really hard to catch my breath.”
“I couldn’t find my friend Greg,” he continued. “He was under the boat at the time and it felt like hours but it was only like five seconds. I finally found him and am relieved to be reunited.”
Shocking video shows a whale leaping out of the water and landing on a boat in Portsmouth harbour on Tuesday morning, capsizing the vessel.
Collin and his brother Wyatt were fishing on another boat in the harbor when the whale jumped, and after capturing the moment on video, the pair rushed to help the stranded boaters, WMTW-TV reported.
“It was just crazy. Luckily I was looking in the right direction and saw the whole thing. I had my camera out and was ready to record everything I saw. I just wanted to document it,” Yeager said. “I saw it start to go up, so I pressed record and we got the rest on video.”
According to WBTS-TV, the US Coast Guard confirmed that the two crew members were not injured, and the whale appears to have been unharmed in the incident.
Whales are common in New Hampshire waters, especially between June and August, and a whale similar to the one that jumped over the boat had been spotted in the same area prior to this incident.
Ironically, Kenny’s family had asked him before the incident about the possibility of something like this happening.
“I actually photographed a whale jumping a few days ago, and I was having dinner with my family, and I was showing them the pictures of the whale, and they asked me, ‘Aren’t you scared that the whale will put your boat in the water?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, well, I’ve done some research and it’s about as likely to happen as lightning,” he said. “And of course, the next day lightning struck.”
Fox News’ Bree Stimson contributed to this report.
