What Happens If You Get Eaten Alive? | Unveiled

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What Happens if You Get Eaten Alive?</h4>

It’s hard to think of a more unpleasant way to go out than being eaten alive. The brutality of the ordeal, the awareness of what’s happening to you, and knowing that - if you were to survive - you’re facing permanent injuries and a lifetime of psychological trauma. But what’s it really like to go through, and which animals are more likely than others to attack you?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what really happens if you get eaten alive?

Getting eaten alive is a cruel and unusual punishment. Often associated with the wrath of God in religious texts, mythology and folklore is full of beasts that want to eat people. In the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale, Jonah is eaten alive and survives for three days within the stomach of some kind of sea creature; usually shown as a whale, but the text more simply refers to it as a “big fish”. Meanwhile, in Greek mythology, there are plenty of stories of monsters that dine on humans; the Minotaur in the Labyrinth killed and ate its victims, as did the cyclops, Polyphemus, which threatened Odysseus’s crew and again ate many of them. It seems then that humans have long feared what might happen if a larger, more powerful creature were to take a liking to us – but what kind of creature in reality could do such a thing, and has it ever happened in real life?

Perhaps it is whales and large fish that you’d think of first. After all, whales are some of the biggest creatures on Earth, and could seemingly stomach us quite easily. However, nearly all whales are, in fact, incapable of doing this. While the ancient tale of Jonah came at a time when whales were still mysterious creatures, we now know a lot more about them - with much of what we do now deriving from the days in the nineteenth century when commercial whaling was big business. Thankfully, it’s a practice that’s become rarer and rarer since then… but, still, it was around this time that we learned that many whales are filter feeders. The blue whale, for example, the largest animal in the world, is a filter feeder, and this means that it has an extremely narrow throat. It’s about the size of a grapefruit, so even if it wanted to - which it doesn’t - it actually could never eat a human at all. 

Not all whale species are filter feeders, though; and some are carnivorous, like the formidable sperm whale. These certainly are huge predators, and we know of many encounters with humans thanks, again, to the whaling industry. So, could you be eaten alive by one of these? Has it happened before? Sperm whale attacks on humans are rare. One reason for this is, fascinatingly, it’s believed that these particular animals are so good at communicating with each other that they’re able to warn other whales away from dangerous human ships, and particularly whaling ships. There aren’t that many recorded attacks, either… although one vessel, the “Essex”, was sunk by an aggressive sperm whale in the 19th century; it’s said to have inspired Herman Melville to write “Moby-Dick”. Generally, if whales have attacked it’s been in self-defense, rather than hunting humans for food. But if a sperm whale really DID want to eat a person… then, unlike with the blue, it’s certainly capable of doing so. Meanwhile, we have Orcas to contend with as well – which actually aren’t whales but are dolphins. And again there have been cases when these incredible creatures have attacked, killed and presumably eaten humans - although often while in captivity, and perhaps not in a true “eaten alive” sense.

Away from the ocean, and snakes bring a different kind of threat. The green anaconda – the largest snake in the world by some metrics – actually hasn’t been conclusively documented to do this, although unsubstantiated stories are common. With the reticulated python, however, another of the world’s largest species, it has been definitively shown to have hunted, killed, and then eaten a human being. Disturbingly, and in recent years, particularly in southeast Asia, there have been multiple cases of reticulated pythons eating people. There’s perhaps some solace in the fact that they eat very rarely, so are not an ever-present danger... but if one gets you, it’s not good. Constrictor snakes actually don’t kill their prey by suffocation, as is often believed. Instead, they squeeze so tightly that their victim’s blood flow is cut off, causing a cardiac arrest. Again, then, it’s unlikely that you’d ever be eaten actually alive by one; you will have died shortly before it consumes you. As such, there are no accounts of someone being swallowed but then somehow living to tell the tale.

We do, however, have many accounts of people surviving shark attacks. Sharks are infamous predators. Statistically it is still rare that you could meet your fate by one, but there is clear reason for caution here. Sharks do often stray into shallow waters, close to beaches, and close to where there are lots of humans. While researchers stress that most shark bites likely aren’t attempts made by the shark to kill humans for food - rather they’re it trying to investigate us as an unknown in their territory - any bite is potentially fatal. Those who survive often do so with grisly injuries, including lost limbs and large, life-changing scars. Many attacks do involve just the one bite, though, before the shark disappears satisfied that humans aren’t its usual food. Nevertheless, we know that, sometimes, there’s a seemingly sustained interest and a bloody onslaught. Here, unlucky swimmers haven’t unknowingly provoked a shark at all; but they have been torn to pieces by them. To better your chances of survival, often-cited advice is to try not to splash during the ordeal, to try to remain calm, and to slowly swim away while keeping the shark in your line of sight.

Elsewhere, and another aquatic creature known to at least attempt to eat humans is the piranha. Piranha attacks aren’t as common as certain movies would perhaps have you believe… but in places where they’re endemic, like through the many rivers of South America, people have been attacked by them – and sometimes fatally, although again it’s quite rare. The best way to prevent an attack, here, is simply to avoid the water entirely in places where piranhas are known to swim.

But finally, and back to dry land, there are some specific people-eating animals that have garnered something of a modern legend. For example, Gustave, a Nile crocodile allegedly responsible for the deaths of more than 300 people and still roaming the river to this day. Next, the Tsavo Man-Eaters, two lions who hunted and killed more than one hundred railway workers in Kenya in 1898 - and are remembered as two of the deadliest animal-to-human predators ever known. They were so relentless that work on the railway had to be shut down; they were attacking that frequently and ferociously. And lastly, in Asia, Bengal tigers have long been known to attack humans. Much as with sharks, this is often because people stray into the tiger’s territory, and not because these big cats are actively hunting humans. Nevertheless, to be caught, killed and eaten by a Bengal Tiger… would just be indescribably frightening. And, actually, there is one outlier in the species, where there did seem to be an active pursuit, as well. The infamous Champawat Tiger, a female, is said to have been responsible for killing more than 400 people in the early twentieth century.

It’s generally deemed highly unlikely that any animal that tries (or even succeeds) in eating a human alive is doing so just for the sake of it. To be cruel, or for a kind of entertainment. Really, that animal is either hungry or it’s defending itself, or its territory. With humans, it’s a different story. We do eat animals alive, such as octopus chopped up but still technically living when it enters our mouths. While illegal in some countries, humans boil lobsters alive. Some eat live animals for shock value, as a kind of stunt, such as with insects or spiders - which many animal rights groups campaign against. We can reasonably suppose that even the most violent people-eating creatures, by comparison - such as Gustave the crocodile - aren’t doing it for similar reasons.

For now, if you’re ever unfortunate enough to find yourself ambushed by an animal, there are certain ones that really could put you through an horrific experience. Thankfully it’s rare, but that’s what would happen if you were eaten alive.