Fisherman whose boat was capsized by breaching whale speaks out: 'Was in fight or flight mode'
A New Hampshire fisherman whose boat was capsized by a breaching whale spoke out about the harrowing experience, detailing the moments leading up to and after the shocking incident caught on video.
Ryland Kenney, who was forced to jump in the water to avoid the whale, joined "America's Newsroom" alongside one of the teens who helped rescue him, Colin Yager, to discuss his reaction to the incident and why he responded the way he did.
"I was in fight or flight mode, so just trying to get off the boat as quickly as possible because I know it was going under once I heard the whale crunch the engine," Kenney said on Friday. "So I just kind of jumped sideways, horizontally to get away from everything. When I hit the water… I was in kind of temperature shock because about 55 degrees, so it was really hard for me to catch my breath."
"I couldn't locate my friend Greg," he continued. "He was actually underneath the boat at the time, and it felt like hours, but it was about maybe five seconds. I finally found him, so once we reunited, I felt a little more calm."
Shocking video showed the whale breaching out of the water in Portsmouth Harbor on Tuesday morning and overturning the boat after it landed on the vessel.
Colin and his brother Wyatt were fishing on another boat in the harbor when the whale breached. After catching the moment on video, they rushed to help the distressed boaters, WMTW-TV reported.
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"It was just completely insane. I was just looking in the right direction, luckily, and I saw the whole thing happen, and I had my camera out, all ready to record whatever I saw, because I just wanted to record stuff," Yager said. "I saw it start to go up, so I just pressed the record button and… the rest is on video."
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that neither of the boaters were hurt, and the whale also appeared to be unharmed by the incident, according to WBTS-TV.
Whales are common in New Hampshire waters, especially between June and August, and a whale — possibly the one that breached over the boat — was seen in the same area before it happened.
Ironically, Kenney's family asked him about the likelihood of something like this happening prior to the incident.
"I've actually taken pictures of the whale breaching, days before, and I had actually had a dinner with my family, and my family was asking me when I was showing them photos of the whale, 'Aren't you scared of the whale potentially knocking your… boat in the water?' And I and I kind of said, 'Oh, well, I've done a lot of research, and the probability of that happening is like lightning strikes,'" he said. "And of course lightning strikes the next day."
Fox News' Brie Stimson contributed to this report.