# RIP Steve Irwin



## Aulë (Sep 4, 2006)

*http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=127458*

*Daredevil Irwin dies doing what he loved*

Wildlife warrior Steve Irwin was a daredevil who loved flirting with danger around deadly animals.
But after years of close shaves it was a normally harmless stingray which finally claimed his life on Monday, plunging a barb into the Crocodile Hunter's chest as he snorkelled in shallow water on the Great Barrier Reef.
The 44-year-old TV personality may have died instantly when struck by the stingray while filming a sequence for his eight-year-old daughter Bindi's new TV series, friends believe.
"(But) nothing would ever scare Steve or would worry him. He didn't have a fear of death at all."
Mr Irwin made his international reputation wrestling crocodiles and snakes.
But the flamboyant naturalist's final confrontation with a wild animal occurred at Batt Reef off Port Douglas on Monday morning, where he had been filming a new documentary, "Ocean's Deadliest".
Taking time off from the main project, Mr Irwin was swimming in shallow water, snorkelling as his cameraman filmed large bull rays.
"He came over the top of a stingray and the stingray's barb went up and went into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Mr Irwin's friend and manager John Stainton.
"It's likely that he possibly died instantly when the barb hit him, and I don't think that he ... felt any pain.
"He died doing what he loved best."
Mr Irwin's death was only the third known stingray death in Australian waters, said shark and stingray expert Victoria Brims.
Wildlife experts said the normally passive creatures only sting in defence, striking with a bayonet-like barb when they feel threatened.
Marine documentary maker Ben Cropp, who spoke to one of Mr Irwin's crew, said: "Steve got probably maybe a bit too close to the ray, and with the cameraman in front, the ray must have felt sort of cornered.
"It went into a defensive mode, stopped, turned around and lashed out with its tail, which has a considerable spike on it.
"Unfortunately Steve was directly in its path and he took a fatal wound."
Unconscious, Mr Irwin was pulled aboard his research vessel, Croc One, for a 30-minute dash to Low Isle, where an emergency helicopter had been summoned at about 11am, his Australia Zoo said in a statement.
The crew of the Croc One performed constant CPR during the voyage to Low Isle, but medical staff pronounced Mr Irwin dead about noon.
Mr Irwin's body was flown to a morgue in Cairns, where stunned family and friends were gathering on Monday night.
His American-born wife Terri was told of her husband's death while on a walking tour in Tasmania, and returned to the Sunshine Coast with her two children, Bindi and three-year-old son Bob.
The death of the larger than life Mr Irwin, best known for his catchcry "Crikey!", caused shockwaves around the world, leading TV bulletins in the United States and Britain.
He was one of Australia's best known personalities internationally and an ambassador for the nation and its wildlife.
Mr Irwin was also a global phenomenon, making almost 50 documentaries which appeared on the cable TV channel Animal Planet, and which generated books, interactive games and even toy action figures.
Prime Minister John Howard said: "I am quite shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death. It's a huge loss to Australia.
"He was a wonderful character. He was a passionate environmentalist. He brought joy and entertainment and excitement to millions of people."
Mourners laid flowers at the entrance of Mr Irwin's Australia Zoo, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
Mr Stainton said bad weather had stopped the filming for their documentary about some of the world's deadliest sea creatures.
Mr Irwin instead decided on a whim to shoot footage for his daughter Bindi's upcoming series.
"He said 'I might just go off and shoot some segments for Bindi's show, just stuff on the reef and little animals," Mr Stainton said.
"I just said fine, anything that would keep him moving and keep his adrenalin going.
"The next thing I heard on the radio was there was a medical emergency, the little dinghy he was in was bringing him back with the crew.
"Everyone tried absolutely tirelessly to revive him to keep him alive, we cut dinghies loose and made it post haste to Low Isle where we knew the chopper would be able to get in, but I think it's possible he probably died at 11am."
Diver Pete West was on a nearby boat and believed Mr Irwin may have been alive when pulled from the water.
"He was doing what he did best and unfortunately today he wasn't quick enough," he told the Seven Network.
University of Melbourne expert Bryan Fry said stingrays only sting in defence.
"They're not aggressive animals so the animal must have felt threatened. It didn't sting out of aggression, it stung out of fear," said Dr Fry, deputy director of the Australian Venom Research.
He said the stingray would have been up to 2.5 metres across, with a "formidable" jagged barb up to 20cm long, capable of tearing flesh.
"It's not the going in, it's the coming out," Dr Fry said of the serrated barb.
But the stingray's venom would not have been a factor.
Mr Irwin was comfortable around animals, no matter how dangerous, and some wildlife experts warned he took too many risks.
His enthusiasm and daring made him famous.
The Melbourne-born father of two's Crocodile Hunter program was first broadcast in 1992 and has been shown around the world on cable network Discovery.
He also starred in movies and helped develop the Australia Zoo wildlife park, north of Brisbane, which was started by his parents Bob and Lyn Irwin.
He grew up near crocodiles, trapping and removing them from populated areas and releasing them in his parents' park, which he took over in 1991.
Bob was involved in a controversial incident in January 2004, when his father held his infant son in one arm as he fed a dead chicken to a crocodile at Australia Zoo.
Child welfare and animal rights groups criticised his actions as irresponsible and tantamount to child abuse.
Mr Irwin said any danger to his son was only a perceived danger and that he was in complete control of the situation.
In June 2004, Mr Irwin came under fire again when it was alleged he came too close to and disturbed some whales, seals and penguins while filming a documentary in Antarctica.
Mr Irwin was also a tourism ambassador and was heavily involved in last year's "G'Day LA" tourism campaign.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said Mr Irwin was an "extraordinary man".
"He has made an enormous difference to his state and his country," he said.

©AAP 2006



Very sad. Especially for his wife and kids.


----------



## Varokhâr (Sep 4, 2006)

Indeed - it's a big loss. He did a lot of good for environmentalism and raising awareness to such. My condolences to his family


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 4, 2006)

That's _terrible!_ What a tragedy!

I hope that the family takes care to make sure that his daughter doesn't blame herself (he was doing the series for her). Kids that age tend to take blame unto themselves because their view of things usually isn't yet wide enough to take in the whole picture around a trauma in which they are involved. 

(By the way, "Bindi" is the Sanskrit word for the red dot that Hindus apply to their foreheads to represent the Third Eye of Wisdom and Knowing.)

Barley


----------



## Arlina (Sep 4, 2006)

This is a tragic lost, he'll be missed by many, and not just his family. I hope his children and wife will be alright; I'm sure they will receive a lot of support from many loyal viewers of his many shows.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 4, 2006)

It's been all over the news. This morning they played an interview between Matt Lauer and Irwin from some time back. It showed Irwin just a few steps from a crocodile, throwing meat to it with one arm while he was holding his one-month old infant in the other! Not knowing much about him, I could only think, What a damn fool! It reminded me of Michael Jackson holding his kid out over the balcony.

Alas, my impression is of a man so full of hubris that he thought he was bulletproof, although it appears that he couldn't have known about that manta ray — evidently it was hiding buried in the sand, he swam directly over it, and it skewered him right through the heart. What a shame...

Barley


----------



## HLGStrider (Sep 4, 2006)

Apparently from some reading I was doing this morning, the chances of being killed by a ray are pretty slim. The sting is supposed to be painful but rarely to never deadly. It was a one and a million chance that this one got him exactly where it could do some serious damage. A few inches down and he probably would've lived.


----------



## Ermundo (Sep 4, 2006)

Unfortuanately, it looks like it wasn't his lucky day.


----------



## Maeglin (Sep 4, 2006)

I'm calling for the genocide of stingrays, who's with me?!


----------



## Noldor_returned (Sep 5, 2006)

Not me. I have my piece to say, but on the stingray thing, it was the seventeenth fatality in the world, and the second in Australia.

Anyway, I respect what he stood for, and I feel pity for his family. He was a good man. But, what he did was not exactly safe. You can't pretend that something like this wasn't going to happen. I have nothing against the man, or what he represented, just what he did. Including dangling his son over a crocodile.


----------



## Arlina (Sep 5, 2006)

I think some of us believed that if he was killed by an animal, it would have been a crocodile, and not a stingray.

He was a loving man, he loved his children, but I didn't like the fact that he had the baby with him when he was messing with a crocodile. However, he was still very protective...the child was in the arms farthest away from the animal...

but that's in the past. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of reruns of his episodes on television as some tribute. 

Best wishes to his family.


----------



## DGoeij (Sep 5, 2006)

I can feel sad for the friends and family he leaves behind, but personally I won't miss him much. His intentions didn't sound bad, but his methods I kind of disliked.

The way he dragged various creatures in front of the camera, including his own child, did not appeal to me. If you like to show other people how magnificent nature is, use a camera allright, but leave them be.

But I would have prefered him to come to his senses, not get killed. The man had a family, darn it.

Typical how it had to be an animal that's not considered to be all that dangerous that got him in the end. You'd expect him to mess up an encounter with a Yellow-striped Amazonian Treecobra or something.


----------



## e.Blackstar (Sep 6, 2006)

And here I was so sure that, in a twist of fate, he would live to 90 and die of natural causes.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 6, 2006)

Last night on the news, I heard that Irwin had in place a long-standing order that none of the footage of him be withheld from the public after his death. This evidently would include the videotape of him pulling the barb out of his heart before he lost consciousness. Personally I think that showing that to the public is simply maudlin, and quite unnecessary, even harmful.

Such footage would be of genuine interest, and be instructive to other scientists and naturalists and especially those studying sting ray behavior, but it would be no more than morbid curiosity and a cheap way to get ratings to show it to the general public. Personally, I don't need to watch a man die.

BTW, there is some discussion that by pulling out the barb, he might have caused so much damage to his heart that he possibly prevented himself from being saved.

Barley


----------



## DGoeij (Sep 6, 2006)

As far as I have understood, the man was hit in the chest, close to the heart. The combination of being hit in that area and the stingray's poison is what caused him to die, if I'm not mistaken. Not unlikely considering that the poison is supposed to have a paralysing effect on muscle tissue and the human heart is a muscle after all.

I know animals can be quite strong (ever wrestled a cat, to check on something stuck in his fur?), but I thought stingray's aren't very big and therefore I find it unlikely one would be able to pierce a man's chest and into his heart. Unless the 30 centimeter wide fish I've seen on the news are the small variant.

But considering the track record of reporters in general and dutch newsmakers in translating foreign media in specific, I could very well be misinformed.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 6, 2006)

According to American TV reports, the stingray's barb, by a million to one fluke, actually pierced Irwin's heart, and he just had time to pull it out before he died — it was videotaped. 

Now there are two hullabaloos: whether or not this footage should be put on television for public viewing to pander to morbid and warped curiosities, and a secondary and more general discussion about where the line should be drawn in "training" the public to want more and more real danger in their entertainment (in order to get a higher share in the ratings). Looks like Sidney Lumet's film "Network" was more and more disturbingly prophetic.

Barley


----------



## Noldor_returned (Sep 7, 2006)

According to _Australian _reports, he was hit in the chest, very close to the heart, and was killed by its poison, depending on how you look at it. There may be other factors, but that is what happened.

Also, stingrays can be very big. Diameter of three meteres, I think. That's pretty big. And even if it isn't that big, they can still grow large.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 7, 2006)

Noldor_returned said:


> According to _Australian _reports, he was hit in the chest, very close to the heart, and was killed by its poison...



If that's true, then American TV got wrong (why am I not surprised) — again.

Barley


----------



## HLGStrider (Sep 7, 2006)

DGoeij said:


> As far as I have understood, the man was hit in the chest, close to the heart. The combination of being hit in that area and the stingray's poison is what caused him to die, if I'm not mistaken. Not unlikely considering that the poison is supposed to have a paralysing effect on muscle tissue and the human heart is a muscle after all.
> 
> I know animals can be quite strong (ever wrestled a cat, to check on something stuck in his fur?), but I thought stingray's aren't very big and therefore I find it unlikely one would be able to pierce a man's chest and into his heart. Unless the 30 centimeter wide fish I've seen on the news are the small variant.
> 
> But considering the track record of reporters in general and dutch newsmakers in translating foreign media in specific, I could very well be misinformed.


 
I don't know how big they grow scientifically, but I've seen pictures which are either taken in pretty poor scale or show a much larger sea beastie. I think there is more than one species, and everything is bigger in Austrailia, as we all know. . .


----------



## DGoeij (Sep 7, 2006)

Well, I strolled around on the infamous wikipedia and read about stingrays there. I know I shouldn't take anything on the internet as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but I might presume an article about 'sea beasties' (sounds great ELgee ) isn't potentially filled with one-sided or incorrect info.

Apparently there's a whole variety of sea beasties (that one might stick for a while, sorry) that is considered to be stingrays and while some are the size of a human hand, some also become six feet (that's 3m as mentioned by Noldor if I'm not mistaken) in diameter. Personally, I can imagine a sea beastie of that magnitude to have a stinger to match it's size. If one of those became annoyed by a our late 'nature fondler', it might do some nasty damage. 

Still, it's all speculation on my part and we've seen various accounts so far. In earliers years, by the time the story reached my part of the world, the man had been impaled by a kraken.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 7, 2006)

DGoeij said:


> some are the size of a human hand, some also become six feet (that's 3m as mentioned by Noldor if I'm not mistaken)



You're mistaken — 3 meters is 9 feet.  

Barley the Nitpicker


----------



## Noldor_returned (Sep 8, 2006)

HLGStrider said:


> I don't know how big they grow scientifically, but I've seen pictures which are either taken in pretty poor scale or show a much larger sea beastie. I think there is more than one species, and everything is bigger in Austrailia, as we all know. . .


 
Really? I guess we have the Big Banana, Big Guitar, Big Pineapple, Big Penguin and a big desert 

Well another great Australian is dead: Peter Brock. I'm not sure how many people other than myself and the other Aussies will know who he is, but he was one of the most famous, if not the most famous car racer in Australian history. How did he die? While driving in Western Australia, he crashed into a tree and was killed. He was a good person, and adored by many, including his rivals on the track. Farewell, P. Brock.


----------



## DGoeij (Sep 8, 2006)

Barliman Butterbur said:


> You're mistaken — 3m meters is 9 feet.
> 
> Barley the Nitpicker




D'oh! I messed up my numbers again. I DO know 3 feet is about 1 metre, but apperently I messed up somewhere along the line. Good thing I'm not a pilot. 

Latest news that reached this former ocean floor, is that footage of mr. Irwin puilling the stinger from his chest will not be released. How long before it will be spread all over the internet, I wonder.  

A grown tree is not something to be dislodged by a car, we get nasty accidents like that around here too. Another Aussie dropped from the planet? That'll teach you to live on the bottom side of a globe.


----------



## Firawyn (Sep 8, 2006)

I didn't know you were an Aussie Noldor...interesting. 

Barley you are a nitpicker....you should start always signing your name as such.

Anyway, my heart goes out to Mr. Irwin's family. Though really, I doubt Steve would have wanted to go any other way...he loved the wild so much.






PS...I was so not surprised to find this thread on TTF...even though this has absulutly nothing to do with Tolkien!


----------



## Noldor_returned (Sep 8, 2006)

Firawyn said:


> I didn't know you were an Aussie Noldor...interesting.
> 
> Barley you are a nitpicker....you should start always signing your name as such.
> 
> ...


 
Indeed, I am. Ever since I was born.

Anyway, Irwin's family have rejected the Australian Government's offer for a public funeral, and have instead decided upon a private funeral, since he wanted to be, "just an ordinary bloke." There is to be a public memorial service instead.


----------



## Jesse (Sep 8, 2006)

May he rest in peace and his legacy live on!


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 9, 2006)

Noldor_returned said:


> Indeed, I am. Ever since I was born.
> 
> Anyway, Irwin's family have rejected the Australian Government's offer for a public funeral, and have instead decided upon a private funeral, since he wanted to be, "just an ordinary bloke." There is to be a public memorial service instead.



Maybe you can give us some inside info on this Granger woman, who has ripped Irwin up and down in the news recently. She totally disapproved of his lifestyle, and seems to have a scandalous reputation. What's her story?

Barley


----------



## Firawyn (Sep 9, 2006)

Jesse said:


> May he rest in peace and his legacy live on!



Here, here!

Nice to see you popping in my friend.


----------



## Aulë (Sep 9, 2006)

Barliman Butterbur said:


> Maybe you can give us some inside info on this Granger woman, who has ripped Irwin up and down in the news recently. She totally disapproved of his lifestyle, and seems to have a scandalous reputation. What's her story?
> 
> Barley


 
In short, Germaine Greer is an ex-pat Aussie who now lives in London and is by all definitions an extreme feminist (she authored a well known book by the name of "_The Female Eunuch_"). Her views have made her many enemies, and most Aussies tend to hate her, especially after she called all Australians "too relaxed to give a damn" in regards to certain political issues. This whole Irwin-bashing approach has made her even more enemies.

Personally I wish she'd crawl back into the hole she came out from.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 10, 2006)

Aulë said:


> ...Germaine Greer is an ex-pat Aussie who now lives in London... This whole Irwin-bashing approach has made her even more enemies.
> 
> Personally I wish she'd crawl back into the hole she came out from.



Thanks for the clarification. CNN has been advertising "Irwin's Last Moments" for _Larry King Live_ tonight — if they're actually going to play the videotape with Irwin pulling the barb out of his chest, I'm not sure I want to watch...

Barley


----------



## Eledhwen (Sep 10, 2006)

*RIP Steve Irwin.*

I'm sorry Steve Irwin's gone. In a world where everything has a guard rail and no-one dares do or say anything for fear of being politically incorrect, he was a breath of fresh air. I bet his is the only zoo where the crocs got any fun at all. A bit like playing tug-o-war with a puppy dog and a rag rope, only with higher stakes.

Also, I can see why Germaine Greer would object to someone so unapologetically, outspokenly enjoying doing what every little boy would love to grow up to do (after being a train driver).

I read that his wife heard of his death from a family member who heard it on the radio. Can someone please say that this is not the case?


----------



## Noldor_returned (Sep 11, 2006)

His wife and children were holidaying in Tasmania, but as to how they heard I hope that wasn't it too. And Germaine Greer, after having done Australian history this year, I have a lot of respect for her. She is the mother of feminism in my beloved country, and I agree with her beliefs, although what she did I am not altogether in agreeance with.


----------

