Very Sad Day

[Fearghus]

I love him... why'd he die...?

of all the things he's done... he's killed by a stingray... 'tis a sad day...

[play_mate]

Yeah it's very sad - He was such a fantastic bloke! Fair enough a little mad on times but that's what made me like him

It is a shame - And in a way though it's hard to believe though that he did such daring things and then he goes and gets killed by a sting-ray which apparently only attacks when their threatened - I honestly thought that he would of been eaten by an aligator or something

[Fearghus]

Originally Posted by play_mate

I honestly thought that he would of been eaten by an aligator or something

me too...

I'm going to miss that guy...
RIP Steve

[Stranger]

yeah..i feel so bad for his family.
his kids are so young.
but i guess he went out doing what he loved most.

[play_mate]

Yeah I suppose that's right - He was totally aware of the dangers involved but he didn't mind because as you said stranger he loved his job

[TheSprostonGreener]

Dying doing something you loved. There are worse ways i suppose.

[Stranger]

yeah..and his wife and kids were vacationing somewhere else.

Here's the story:

Sydney - Australian wildlife documentary maker Steve Irwin should have known better than to swim above the stingray whose poison-laced barb flicked up, stabbed him through the heart and took his life almost instantly during an underwater filming sequence in far-north Queensland, experts said Monday.

Irwin, 44, went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead around an hour after the ray's 20-centimetre barb pierced his chest when he was snorkelling in shallow water in the Great Barrier Reef near the Queensland city of Cairns.

'It's dangerous to swim directly over a stingray as the spine may pierce the person's trunk with possible fatal consequences,' Surf Life Saving Queensland (SLSQ) said in a statement.

There have only been 17 recorded stingray deaths, the SLSQ said, with the first reported Australian death in 1969 when a barb also punctured the heart of the victim. Injuries, some fatal and some not, were most likely when swimmers trod on rays because they didn't see them.

Sydney Aquarium marine scientist Grant Willis, who survived being jabbed by a stingray, said he had experienced 'excruciating pain for about six hours and about five hits of morphine - which seemed to do absolutely nothing for the pain.'

Willis added: 'It was absolutely unbelievable, so I cannot even imagine getting something even half this size anywhere near a vital organ, plus you've got the venom involved as well.'

Willis concurred with other marine life experts who said stingrays weren't aggressive and that the barbs were a self-defence mechanism deployed when the creatures felt threatened or that they were cornered. 'If it thinks something is going to hurt it, it does everything it can to defend itself,' he said.

University of Melbourne marine biologist Bryan Fry confirmed that stingrays are essentially placid. 'They are not aggressive animals, so the animal must have felt threatened,' Fry told Australia's AAP news agency. 'It didn't sting out of aggression, it stung of fear.'

John Stainton, the television producer who discovered the Crocodile Hunter's talents and became his business manager for his break into films, said his protégé and friend probably died instantly and felt little pain when the barb jabbed into his chest.

'It's likely that he possibly died instantly when the barb hit him,' Stainton said. 'He died doing what he loved best.'

Fellow Australian Stainton said Irwin was a fearless individual who had racked up 56 documentaries and probably knew that he had courted death in every one.

'You think of all the documentaries we've made and all the dangerous situations that we've been in, you always think 'Is this it, is this a day that may be his demise?' But nothing would ever scare Steve or worry him. He didn't have a fear of death at all.'

I'm glad, at least, it was quick. May he RIP.

[TheSprostonGreener]

Too right RIP. Has anybody on here had the joke E-mail yet???

[play_mate]

Nope what you got? Don't post it in the forum though some members might take offence