A marine biologist was trying to cut open the carcass of a sperm whale when he hit a gas pocket. The extremely graphic footage was caught on camera by the Faroese Broadcasting Corporation and shows Bjarni Mikkelsen tentatively cutting open the whale when suddenly it explodes, sending organs and blood into the air.
According to the Daily Mail, the whale was one of two which died earlier in the week after being trapped in a narrow channel near the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic. Mikkelsen and residents of the Denmark town wanted the skeleton of the sperm whale to put into a museum. This was Mikkelsen's first time cutting open a whale carcass, the Daily Mail reports.
"The animal was more than two days old when we took it so we knew there would be some pressure on the inside, but nothing like what happened," he told the newspaper. "We couldn't imagine it would happen like that so it was a little bit more of a surprise."
He said even though the video looks extremely graphic the explosion happened "in a very controlled way" because he was cutting along the dorsal part, or top, of the whale.
"It wasn't a shock. We had expected something," he said adding that the explosion was very loud. "In the situation I was more worried about something worse happening or anyone getting hurt."
Reportedly the residents still want to put the skeleton in a museum "as a reminder of their culture" and have already begun cutting open the carcass again. When an animal dies bacteria inside produces methane, which is a part of the decomposition process. If the trapped gas is not let out gradually, it will eventually explode whenever it gets the chance.
WARNING: VIDEO IS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC
