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Steve Irwin's tragic accidental death caught on film

By M&C News Sep 4, 2006, 18:34 GMT

$Steve Irwin and his wife Terri cuddle Harriet the Tortoise at their zoo in Beerwah, north of Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia.Irwin, the quirky Australian naturalist who won worldwide acclaim as TV\'s khaki-clad \'Crocodile Hunter\', was killed by a stingray barb through the heart while filming a new documentary on Monday. REUTERS/Australia Zoo/Ho$

Steve Irwin and his wife Terri cuddle Harriet the Tortoise at their zoo in Beerwah, north of Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia.Irwin, the quirky Australian naturalist who won worldwide acclaim as TV\'s khaki-clad \'Crocodile Hunter\', was killed by a stingray barb through the heart while filming a new documentary on Monday. REUTERS/Australia Zoo/Ho

Queensland police have been handed the taped footage that was the last record of Australian Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin being fatally pieced through the heart by a stingray on the Great Barrier Reef.

Irwin, 44, was killed almost instantly when the stingray turned and attacked him in the heart with its poisonous 20cm barb as Irwin snorkelled off Port Douglas, in north Queensland.

His wife Terri was visiting Tasmania's Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair National Park when she received the word of her husband's death.

The Australian reports: "The footage shows him swimming in the water, the ray stopped and turned and that was it," said boatowner Peter West, who viewed the footage afterwards.

"There was no blood in the water, it was not that obvious ... something happened with this animal that made it rear and he was at the wrong position at the wrong time and if it hit him anywhere else we would not be talking about a fatality."

Ironically Irwin was just doing his job, shooting a documentary on dangerous marine life in shallow water at Batt Reef. Footage of the attack shows Irwin swimming above a 2.5m stingray before it turns on him and stabs him with a poisonous barb straight into heart.

He was pulled from the water by his crew, who say he was barely conscious in the minutes after the sting and died as his production team rushed him to his vessel, Croc One, and to a nearby island for emergency treatment.

Irwin was pronounced dead shortly afterwards by Queensland Rescue Service officers, who had flown to the area by helicopter. The Australian reports that a coronial inquest is expected.

Peter Fenner, a Mackay-based authority on sea creatures who studies stingray injuries, told The Australian the stingray would have unleashed its powerful barb - up to 20cm long, serrated, made of strong cartilage and wrapped in a venomous sheath - in a whipping action.

"The flaps of the stingray would have been stimulated in some way - he may have been too close to it," he said yesterday.

"Its tail has come forward and the barb in it has gone into his chest. It has probably punctured the aorta, the major vessel.

"The effect would be like cutting it with a knife. Within a few seconds, almost all the body's blood volume would have pumped out into the chest cavity.

"The blood loss would have caused death quickly after unconsciousness. He would have known what had happened but he'd be blacking out fast. "It would have been very quick, exactly the same as if he had been stabbed in the heart."

Dr Fenner said the creatures were not naturally aggressive and had been responsible for fewer than 20 deaths around the world.

The barb's venom is not lethal but severe infections, ulcers and sores are not uncommon.

Phil Burke, a former commercial diver and colleague of Irwin's, has also been struck by a stingray. Its barb snapped off in his thigh. The wound became so badly infected from the venom inside his leg he could not work for 16 months and needed a skin graft.

"I was unfortunate enough to be stung. It's a very nasty injury to have," Mr Burke told ABC Radio in Brisbane yesterday.

"It pierced through my wetsuit and into my thigh as the ray travelled past. The barb came down through my wetsuit and snapped off in my thigh."

Dr Fenner said it was highly probable Irwin would have lived if the barb had not pierced his chest.

In March 1988, a 12-year-old boy in a dinghy travelling across Mourilyan Harbour, off Innisfail, was struck by a large stingray after it leapt out of the water.

He received a puncture "the size of a .22 bullet hole right through his left nipple" and died six days later, Dr Fenner said.

A post mortem examination revealed a puncture wound in the boy's heart's right ventricle, surrounded by tissue that had been breaking down since the injury occurred.

Dr Fenner said that was the only other confirmed Australian stingray fatality, but a man who dived into a seawater bath in Victoria in the 1930s died after suffering what was suspected as a chest injury from a ray's barb.

The Australian reported that producer, director and life-long friend John Stainton yesterday said Irwin did not provoke the stingray and was simply swimming above it when he was attacked.

"He came over the top of a stingray and the stingray barb went up and into his chest and into his heart," Stainton said. "It's likely that he possibly died instantly when the barb hit him, and I hope he felt no pain."

One of Irwin's contemporaries, internationally known cameraman and spearfisherman Ben Cropp, was in his own boat off Port Douglas when Irwin was killed.

"I have just spoken to a cameraman friend who was there and has seen the footage," Mr Cropp told The Australian last night. Mr Cropp said the stingray was spooked and went into defensive mood. "It stopped and went into a defensive mode and swung its tail with the spike.

"He was up in the shallow water, probably 1.5m to 2m deep, following a bull ray which was about a metre across the body - probably weighing about 100kg, and it had quite a large spine. It probably felt threatened because Steve was alongside and there was the cameraman ahead, and it felt there was danger and it baulked."

"Steve was so close he could not get away, so if you can imagine it - being right beside the ray and it swinging its spine upwards from underneath Steve - and it hit him."

In September 2004, Mr Cropp was attacked by a tiger shark on Bott Reef. "The rays in Australia and particularly in the north are not like those on the Cayman Islands, which are very quiet and allow people to ride on their backs," he said.

"At this time of the year they are on the lookout for tiger sharks and are very frisky.
"They are not aggressive. In fact they are very timid, but they defend themselves by throwing their tail spine upwards, and there is a spike on the tip about eight inches long which they can use like a dagger."

National marine stinger adviser Lisa-ann Gershwin stressed the rarity of attacks by rays. "It's just an absolute fluke, it's not the sort of thing that happens normally," Dr Gershwin said yesterday.

Dr Gershwin said stingray stings to the legs or arms were common and, while painful, were not normally considered dangerous. She said there were many different types of stingrays, with barbs on their tails up to 30cm long, and they poisoned victims with a range of toxins.

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KellySep 4th, 2006 - 23:17:27

It want be the same without Steve Irwin. Everybody wathched him! I know his kids and wife are so sad. It is very unreal!!

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