Steve Irwin taken by stingray

[SmithCraft64]

May he rest in peace. He was a colorful character. And will be missed by many.

[Joe6]

Name sounded familiar so I yahoo'd it.

Crikey! This sucks!

He certainly will be missed. I have enjoyed the "Crocodile Hunter" for years, great personality!

R.I.P.

Joe

[hansp77]

Who ever heard of a stingray barb through the heart?
Totally surreal.

old words- but he died doing what he loved,
and if it did have to be now, it is probably more fitting that it happened in this way rather than choking on a chicken bone or something.

Still- totally surreal.
Last night they showed a stingray barb on the news- about six inches long, really sharp thin and strong with serations and coverered in venom/toxin- a perfect blade. Apparantly boat hulls have been stabbed clean through by these. The toxin intself acts upon the heart, but it seems that the wound may have been the near-instantanous cause of death.

Missed by many but most of all his two kids and wife.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by hansp77

Who ever heard of a stingray barb through the heart?
Totally surreal.

Still- totally surreal.
Last night they showed a stingray barb on the news- about six inches long, really sharp thin and strong with serations and coverered in venom/toxin- a perfect blade. Apparantly boat hulls have been stabbed clean through by these. The toxin intself acts upon the heart, but it seems that the wound may have been the near-instantanous cause of death.

Missed by many but most of all his two kids and wife.

Base on my experience with rays..only one type have the sting at the end of the whip like tail..and this is the only type known to fisherman at my place to attack with the whip when hooked up and brought alongside, the others have double sting at the base of the tail close to the body.My own brother in law fainted after the sting pierce through his palm, 6 inches long sting.We heard about Steeve fatal incident last night on the news.He have very big group of followers in Malaysia.My family for sure will miss him.
May Steve 'the crocodile hunter' rest in peace.Amen

[Figgy]

The man died doing what he loved. I hope I'm that lucky.
R.I.P. Steve Irwin, my thought are with your family.

[antonfourie]

R.I.P Mr Crocodile Hunter

[bilgeboy]

Loved your enthusiasm, Steve, your family is in my prayers. The world has lost a great environmental advocate.

I have been thinking alot about what happened. I stepped on a stingray in the Baha Peninsula of Mexico many years ago, and found the gradual onset of excruciating pain to be terrifying. I thought I might die on that beach as the cramping ascended my leg. It took me reading through a tourist guide while chugging rum to figure it out. If it has that effect on skeletal muscle, it might very well have the same effect on cardiac muscle as they are both striated, and pretty similar.

From what I hear on the news, the barb went into his heart directly, and they believe this direct trauma killed him. Thats a very different scenario than an envenomation, though. For the barb to puncture myocardium, it would have to first pass through a slippery, tough sac around the the heart called the "peri"cardium. Unfortunately, blood leaking from a punctured heart will fill the layer between the outside of the heart and the pericardium, and begin to compress the heart from the outside. This happens not too infrequently in chest trauma and is called a pericardial "tamponade". It can be deadly fast if you don't have a surgeon or ED doc handIy. I am guessing that this is what happened.

I don't mean to detract from the loss at all, but I think Steve himself would have been amazed at the physiology. He was curious and loved biology. I hope I have only honored him by thinking about how his death occured.

Mike

[hansp77]

Thanks Mike,
I found that rather interesting.
About honoring him, I think you could honor him even a little more if you get down real low to the computer screen while performing overdone facial exressions and dramatic hand movements to describe the prescise details of barb entering the heart...
no doubt he would do the same.

Apparantly the video footage of the incident shows him swimming over the ray, getting struck, and then quickly pulling the barb out of his chest- and then immeadiatly loosing consiousness (and probably dying).

It is quite amazing the media focus on Steve's death and life. In Australia he was not actually that famous. Nothing at least in comparison to his fame in America and elsewhere internationally.
In a way he was regarded a bit of a joke here- as a caricature of himself. There was something in his character that repelled the Australian mainstream, probably something that they repelled inside themselves. Irwin himself called it his "cringe factor".
The idea is that there is a bit of him in everyone of us, and as Australians (majority being urban-ites) we repress this...
In the papers today, we have had the complete spectrum of praise, greiving and celbration of Irwin, to critiscism and condemnation of the man and his practices, and also disgust at the media attention his death is recieving.
Even Germain Greer (the famed feminist writer of "the female Eunuch") did an article today critiscising him rather brutally.
In discounting his self-proclaimed environmentalism, Greer claims "the Crocodile Hunter was an entertainer, a 21'st century version of a lion-tamer, but with crocodiles."
"there was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement."

Anyway,
the media have hardly finished with this one yet...
Hopefully his family is managing to ignore the current mud-fight over his legacy.

[Frosty]

I just heard on the telly that he is being given a state funeral. His Father apparantly said not to as he was just a normal bloke. I think they are both wrong.

[stonebreaker]

Originally Posted by hansp77

In a way he was regarded a bit of a joke here- as a caricature of himself. There was something in his character that repelled the Australian mainstream, probably something that they repelled inside themselves. Irwin himself called it his "cringe factor".
The idea is that there is a bit of him in everyone of us, and as Australians (majority being urban-ites) we repress this...
In the papers today, we have had the complete spectrum of praise, greiving and celbration of Irwin, to critiscism and condemnation of the man and his practices, and also disgust at the media attention his death is recieving.
Even Germain Greer (the famed feminist writer of "the female Eunuch") did an article today critiscising him rather brutally.
In discounting his self-proclaimed environmentalism, Greer claims "the Crocodile Hunter was an entertainer, a 21'st century version of a lion-tamer, but with crocodiles."
"there was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement."

Anyway,
the media have hardly finished with this one yet...
Hopefully his family is managing to ignore the current mud-fight over his legacy.

I never was much of a fan, but reading about the "cringe factor" actually makes me like him a little more. Being a displaced Texan, I get that sort of crap from my friends all the time. I've never worn cowboy boots in my life, but as soon as anyone finds out I'm from Texas, out comes the "Howdy, ya'll, yee-hah!" stuff. Especially from the Aussies.

I remember one episode where he went looking for rattlesnakes in the Shenandoah mountains. My kids dragged me to watch because he was on the same mountain we always went to. He was squatted down holding one rattler and going on in his usual way, when all of a sudden you hear another rattler start up and Steve just froze. I have to give him credit, he didn't say it out loud, but I saw him mouth the words before he looked down. The man didn't panic, either - his crew kept filming as he reached down between his legs and pulled that other rattler out and away from the -ahem- "sensitive area." You have to admire a guy who can keep his head when a 6 foot viper is poised to bite him in the nads.

As for that Greer gal, she couldn't write anything nice about him even if she wanted to. Irwin's about as macho as you can get, which, to a feminist, is like garlic to a vampire. One word of admiration from her and she's negated her whole existence. People like that, who base their beliefs on emotions rather than logical thinking, are to be dismissed out of hand anyway.

[Frosty]

I thought he was great. I would always watch his documentaries. He did what he loved and loved what he did , that was plain to see, his enthusiasm was refreshing.
I am deeply saddened by by his death. I assume that the- 'jump on the band wagon others'-- that try to emulate him will be (and there seems to be a few) ready to take his place.

To those I say beware,- to emulate him in life is competition but to emulate him after death could be construed as something completely different.

[Toot]

Originally Posted by jack frost

I thought he was great. I would always watch his documentaries. He did what he loved and loved what he did , that was plain to see, his enthusiasm was refreshing.
I am deeply saddened by by his death. I assume that the- 'jump on the band wagon others'-- that try to emulate him will be (and there seems to be a few) ready to take his place.

To those I say beware,- to emulate him in life is competition but to emulate him after death could be construed as something completely different.

True. There's another guy Jeff Corwin. How's this for freaky...

3 nights ago, I was talking on the phone with my girlfriend, shortly after midnight. We were actually discussing who was better- Steve Irwin or Jeff Corwin. I voted for Corwin, but it was a very close call. I loved Irwin's enthusiasm and his aussie-isms. What I liked even more was that he wasn't made-for-TV. It didn't seem to be a persona, he was genuine and truly excited. I couldn't imagine a TV exec saying, "We need a knowledgeable and adventurous naturalist who acts like this..." He was who he was, and it was endearing. You don't see a lot of guys like that on television anymore.

By contrast, Corwin seems more of a made-for-tv type of cleancut personality. However, I also said that Corwin seemed to convey a little more respect for the animals... Not that Irwin wasn't respectful, but Corwin seemed to convey it, where Irwin sometimes looked like a circus sideshow.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather watch Irwin than Corwin. However, I could see Irwin sending a really bad message to over-imaginative young boys.


Anyway, the odd thing was, within a few hours of talking about this with my girlfriend, he was dead.

[SamSam]

Originally Posted by Toot

However, I could see Irwin sending a really bad message to over-imaginative young boys.

Saw him the other night on Animal Planet, he was waist deep in a muddy 12' diameter waterhole herding a submerged 8' crocodile into a net using a stick and his feet. Some of those nature guys are almost too spooky to watch.
South Park had him in an episode and sort of pegged him. He's got a huge croc in a headlock and then he says in his Aussie accent,"Now I'll jamb my thumb up his butt, that ought to piss him off!". He was unique. Sam

[Frosty]

I read in the BBc (so it must be true) that some dopy Ausies are out killing Stingrays now in revenge for Steve.

Mind boggling isnt it.

[Ari]

Shown on Malaysia TV3 last night.About ten rays actually.Kinda revenge ?

Yes it is mind boggling.