RIP Steve Irwin!

Azurel · Sep 4, 2006

I know a lot of people didn't like him, but one has to give him the respect of being a heck of a conservationist of trying to keep our wild animals around for much longer. In that capacity he will be missed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060904/ap_on_en_tv/obit_irwin

ficklefins · Sep 4, 2006

Crazy isn't it! A stingray barb pierced his chest and potentially his heart. He did some dumb things but that was part of his persona.

RIP

gflat65 · Sep 4, 2006

Yeah, someone from my local club posted that. I guess if you gotta go, you should go doing something you enjoy...

JGoslee · Sep 4, 2006

What a way to go. A stingray barb thru the heart.
R.I.P.

twon8 · Sep 4, 2006

i'm playing some bon jovi in honor of him.

Chris2222000 · Sep 4, 2006

Wow this feels so unreal! Best wishes for his little children and family.

Bwlr · Sep 4, 2006

Sad to hear.

mecold · Sep 4, 2006

Sad to hear, my wife and I watched his show every sunday for the longest. We watched reruns though throughout the week. I hope his wife, children, and family are taking it well.

Seems so odd that a man that played with so many other deadly animals would be killed by a stingray. RIP.

Marine Flora · Sep 5, 2006

i'm stunned!! i didn't think his career would end so soon... RIP Steve.

Azurel · Sep 5, 2006

I heard this morning that it was only the 4th time in history that a person was killed by a sting ray.

jessiesgrrl · Sep 5, 2006

Azurel said:
I heard this morning that it was only the 4th time in history that a person was killed by a sting ray.

Gotta respect the barb though, apparently...

Laurie

Reefwifey · Sep 5, 2006

I read that he was only in 3-6 feet of water and it while freakish, it could have happened to anyone. He wasn't even filming a dangerous show where he was pestering some dangerous animal, it was supposed to be some coral/reef life footage for a childrens show.

I'm a big fan of Steve's, I've always loved him. He died doing what he loved, and feel so badly for his wife and children.

RIP Steve

MarvinsReef · Sep 5, 2006

RIP Steve.. prayers to his family... wife and two kids..

Marvin

twon8 · Sep 5, 2006

Azurel said:
I heard this morning that it was only the 4th time in history that a person was killed by a sting ray.

he was the fourth person to be killed by a sting ray in australia, not the whole world.

I think it is one of the most appropriate ways to go for a human being in a while, probably since dale earnhardt died at daytona during the race. supposedly he died nearly instantaneously; i wonder what the last thought in his head was as he realized what had just happened.

Azurel · Sep 5, 2006

The thing I heard on the news this morning that it was the only 4 death caused by a stingray world wide. They said that almost all stingray attacks(if you want to call them that) people do not die or really have any issues because they can get to medical attention before the poison does any harm. Where his accident there was no chance. If it was accurate or not I do not know.......

twon8 · Sep 5, 2006

i heard someone from australian tv saying it was only the fourth fatality in australian history; my dismay at tv "reporters" who don't verify the accuracy of their reports grows by leaps everyday.

the reason most people don't die is because it is a very weak poison and most people get stung after stepping on them--> thus they get stung on their legs/feet.

obviously that ray was probably huge, and thus had a large barb, but i believe his death was due to location of the strike, through the heart.

taken from cnn, some redundant:
SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- Normally placid stingrays can deliver horrific, agonizing injuries, even though fatal attacks are almost unheard of, marine experts said on Monday after the death of Australia's "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin.

Irwin, the bubbly, khaki-clad naturalist whose documentaries were watched by hundreds of millions around the world, died after he was struck in the chest by a stingray barb while he was diving off Australia's northeast coast on Monday.

Irwin's manager John Stainton said Irwin was swimming over the stingray during filming for a documentary when he was struck in the chest, the barb most likely piercing his heart.

Dr. Bryan Fry, deputy director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne, said stingray venom was "extraordinarily painful."

"If he was conscious he would have been in agony," Fry told Reuters.

Fry said stingray venom was a defensive weapon similar to that in stonefish but was not lethal. Serrated barbs on the stingray's tail would have delivered the fatal injury, he said.

"It's not the going in, it's the coming out," Fry said.

"They have these deep serrations which tear and render the flesh as it comes out," he said.

The barbs on stingray's tails can measure up to 20 centimeters.

Clinical toxinologist Dr. Geoff Isbister said little is known about stingray venom but agreed the physical trauma associated with the wound would have killed Irwin.

"What happened to Steve Irwin is like being stabbed in the heart," Isbister said.

Injuries caused by stingrays are relatively common but fatalities are extremely rare, with experts saying there are only one or two known cases in recorded Australian history.

An Aboriginal boy died several years ago, while the previous record death was in Melbourne in 1945.

"The majority of stingray injuries in Australia result from people stepping on them in shallow water and getting a stingray barb in the ankle," Isbister said.

Marine ecologist Sean Connell said stingrays, which feed on small animals on the sea floor, are related to sharks and use their long, barbed tails to protect themselves from predators, such as sharks and killer whales.

"I have never heard of an unprovoked attack from a stingray," Connell said. "Such attacks usually only happen when the ray is under severe stress," he said.

Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Azurel · Sep 5, 2006

Yea reporters have lost a lot of my respect over the last few years......Yea that was just a one in a million chance that it would hit right where it did. Kinda let's you know it was ment to be it was his time to come home.

gflat65 · Sep 5, 2006

Yeah, the venom is more to add pain than to kill. There are hundreds of 'incidents' a year in just the US, if I understood from more likely inaccurate reporting. As twon mentinoed, people usually get hit on the foot or lower leg, hence the shuffling of feet in coastal waters known for sting rays. The one that got him was huge, they said.