It looks like a moment of terror – a diver finds her leg clamped in the jaws of a beluga whale. In fact, it was a stunning example of an animal coming to the rescue of a human life. Yang Yun, 26, was taking part in a free diving contest without breathing equipment among the whales in a tank of water more than 20ft deep and chilled to Arctic temperatures.
She says that when she tried to return to the surface, she found her legs crippled by cramp from the freezing cold. At that point Mila the beluga took a hand, or rather a flipper. We suddenly saw the girl being pushed to the top of the pool with her leg in Mila’s mouth,’ said an official at Polar Land in Harbin, north-east China.
‘She’s a sensitive animal who works closely with humans and I think this girl owes Mila her life.’ Thankfully belugas, which live in the Arctic and sub-Arctic and feed on small fish and squid, have only small teeth and Yang Yun was uninjured.
At depths of 20ft and below, the water pressure keeps a body down, particularly if, as in this case, the limbs are effectively paralysed by the cold. Reliving the drama, Yang Yun said: ‘I began to choke and sank even lower and I thought that was it for me – I was dead.
‘Until I felt this incredible force under me driving me to the surface.’
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Lucky!!
Animals seem to be able to tell when somethings wrong or if someones ill.
I heard dogs have detected cancer in people long before they knew, don’t know how the dogs supposed to tell you that though
Amazing!! and yet why not? – the human race could learn a thing or two from the animal kingdom.
that is amazing but if i saw that coming towards me i think my first thought would be i would rather drown than be eaten by it.
I so LOVE Dolphins and Whales…how they look at you and observe and communicate when youre close…makes you shiver and realise they are probably alot wiser (then us) then we might think…
Whether the animal really did it for saving purposes … that’s not clear ofcourse, but if it is a true story .. the diver will not bother too much about the why anymore .. It is ofcourse a dumb thing to do .. what those divers did. You kind of ask for death .. that’s the risk of that type of ‘game’.
I had heard about wild dolphins doing this some times. This is not a wild wale. Some train their animals to do stuff like this. Pushing people above the surface on the tip of their nose, that type of stuff.
and look what we as people do to animals in return…
(Whalespeak) Hmm, that human looks tasty, I’ll wait until she stops moving and then see if I can eat her. Nope, too tough, I’ll just discard her on the surface, dont want her littering the bottom of my tank now do I?
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my sisters thesis was actually titled “when dolphins attack”. changed my perspective a bit! i can’t help but find that hilarious and think of hitch hikers guide to the galaxy.
it’s fascinating the animal even recognised what to do, if it was indeed trying to help. i quite like Geoff’s theory though…
An incredible story to be sure. But it does assuming we can attribute human motives to the whale.
Also, as a SCUBA diver I have to ask why on earth was there no safety divers on hand? I know 20ft doesn’t sound deep, until you are down there and stuck. Even with full SCUBA gear, it would be classed as an extreme dive due to the cold.