OMFG! Steve Irwin Has Died!

[BlueHUMMERH2]

:crying: :crying: :crying: :crying: :crying:

Steve Irwin Dead (http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/04/australia.irwin/index.html)

[The Green Lantern]

Well, I guess he died as he lived. :crying: :crying:

[Hmmm2]

I just saw that reported, too. Stingray barb right in the chest. Awful. :crying:

[DDWH]

Sucks Ass!!!, guess his wife dosen't even know yet:crying:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20349888-2,00.html

[HummBob]

Damn, That Sucks:( :( He was COOL :(

[Ipedog]

The man dies doing what he loved best, so I guess you can't argue with that. :crying::crying::crying:

[h2co-pilot]

OMFG! I saw this at 4 last night and had to make sure it was real. Of all the things he came into contact with- a damned stingray?!:eek::(



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.

[DRTYFN]

He screwed around with all of those dangerous animals and he gets:OWNED: by a usually docile stingray. I guess he ran out of pixie dust.

[KenP]

Sux for his family, but he did put himself in harm's way.:(

[Arizona Hummerboy]

Australia's `Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin killed by stingray's barb
By BRIAN CASSEY (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
September 04, 2006 10:20 AM EDT
CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin died doing what he loved best, getting too close to one of the dangerous animals he dedicated his life to protecting in an irrepressible style that shot him to global fame as television's "Crocodile Hunter."
Irwin's heart was pierced by the serrated, poisonous spine of a stingray as he swam with the fish Monday while shooting a new television show on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, his manager and producer John Stainton said. He was 44.
News of Irwin's death reverberated around the world, triggering surprise despite his fame as a man who regularly leaped on the back of huge crocodiles and grabbed deadly snakes by the tail.
"I am shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death," Prime Minister John Howard said. "It's a huge loss to Australia."
International conservationists said all the world would feel the loss of Irwin, who turned a childhood love of snakes and lizards into a message of wildlife preservation that reached a television audience that reportedly exceeded 200 million.
In high-energy programs from Africa, the Americas and Asia, but especially his beloved Australia, Irwin - dressed always in khaki shorts, shirt and heavy boots - crept up on lions, chased and was chased by komodo dragons, and went eye-to-eye with poisonous snakes.
Often, his trademark big finish was to hunt down one of the huge saltwater crocodiles that inhabit the rivers and beaches of the Outback in Australia's tropical north, leap onto its back, grabbing its jaws with his bare hands, then tying the animal's mouth with rope.
He was a committed conservationist, running a wildlife park for crocodiles and other Australian fauna, including kangaroos, koalas and possums, and using some of his television wealth to buy tracts of land for use as natural habitat.
Irwin was in the water at Batt Reef, off the resort town of Port Douglas about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Cairns, shooting a series called "Ocean's Deadliest" when he swam too close a stingray, Stainton told reporters.
"He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat, Croc One, at the time.
Crew members administered CPR and rushed to rendezvous with a rescue helicopter that flew to nearby Low Isle, but Irwin was pronounced dead when the paramedics arrived, Stainton said.
"The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet," Stainton said. "He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!'"
Irwin was born Feb. 22, 1962, in the southern city of Melbourne to a plumber father and a nurse mother, who decided a few years later to chase a shared dream of becoming involved in animal preservation.
They moved to the Sunshine Coast in tropical Queensland state and opened a reptile and wildlife preserve at Beerwah in 1970, Irwin said in a recent interview. Irwin was in his element.
He was given a snake for his sixth birthday and regularly went on capturing excursions with his father in the bushland around the park. He was catching crocodiles by age nine, and in his 20s worked for the Queensland state government as a trapper who removed problematic crocodiles from populated areas.
Irwin's father, Bob, described his son as having an innate affinity with animals at an early age, a sense Irwin later described as "a gift."
His family said there was never a downtime to his effusive personality, characterized by his broad Australian twang, mile-a-minute delivery and big arm gestures. "Crikey!" was his catch phrase, repeated whenever there was a close shave - or just about any other event - during his programs.
In 1991, Irwin took over the park, Australia Zoo, when his parents retired and began building a reputation as a showman during daily crocodile feeding shows.
He met and married Terri Raines, from Eugene, Oregon, who came to the park as a tourist, that year. They invited a television crew to join them on their camping honeymoon on Australia's far northern tip.
The resulting show became the first "Crocodile Hunter," was picked up by the Discovery Channel the following year, and the resulting series became an international hit.
Irwin was more famous in the United States than at home, where he typified a knockabout, rascally character that Australians call a larrikin and which many people worried painted a stereotypical picture of Australians as brash and uncouth.
Irwin loved Australia and its people, though, describing it as the greatest land on Earth.
Irwin said he learned about animals at his parent's side rather than in schools, but his knowledge was respected widely.
"He was probably one of the most knowledgeable reptile people in the entire world," Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo and Aquarium, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday.
By 2002 he had starred in a movie - Australia Zoo - had became a major attraction, and the Australian government had enlisted him as the star of international tourist campaigns.
When U.S. President George W. Bush visited Australia in 2003, Irwin was among the guests hand-picked by Howard to attend a ceremonial barbecue - and he turned up in his khakis.
The public image was dented in 2004 when Irwin triggered an uproar by holding his month-old son in one arm while feeding large crocodiles inside a zoo pen. Irwin claimed at the time there was no danger to his son, and authorities declined to charge Irwin with violating safety regulations.
Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a documentary. An Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him.
At Australia Zoo in Beerwah, flowers and cards were dropped at the entrance on Monday as news of Irwin's death spread.
"Steve, from all God's creatures, thank you. Rest in peace," was written on a card with a bouquet of native flowers.
Irwin is survived by his wife Terri, daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December.

[HummerHippy]

I feel bad for his family too. But he lived doing what he loved. My diving friend said he should have been playing with a Mante ray (sp?) not a Sting ray. THey don't have poison barbs. But then, what's the fun/challenge in that?

[Dan Rather]

**NEWS FLASH*** This just in -

[DRTYFN]

This is what pierced his heart.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230025446192

[DRTYFN]

:(

[Big Z]

He screwed around with all of those dangerous animals and he gets:OWNED: by a usually docile stingray. I guess he ran out of pixie dust.

X2...Poke A rattle Snake enough times your gonna get bit!......

[Grape Ape]

I am suprised he had not taken himself out a long time ago. OI!!!!!!

[devilsfan]

I like the guy, but heck...natural selection at its finest....

Stacy

[Arizona Hummerboy]

Steve Irwin lived a awesome life style, and he died doing what he loved to do, being with animals .

[H2Finally]

A while back some idiot decided to release his too large pet alligator at a pond in a park near me. When many so called alligator experts (including a displaced New Orleaner) failed to catch the alligator, Steve Irwin promised to come and catch the alligator. So sad...:crying::crying:

Btw, prob a year later, the pond is still closed, and the alligator is still loose.

[Steve - SanJose]

Sorry to hear the news.:crying:

S.

[DennisAJC]

They asked me to take over his job.

[Jim_Cantore]

So,


I'm going to Outback and ordering "Steve on the Barbi".:OWNED:

:jump:

[dochummer]

I definately feel sorry for the young family...

[westhillsat]

Feel sorry for the family, but that's how he lived his life :(
and he enjoyed what he did.

[BlueHUMMERH2]

Bindi's touching tribute (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20355466-2,00.html)

IT was the best Father's Day present Steve Irwin could have asked for - a moving tribute from his eight-year-old daughter telling the world how she loved him "very, very much".

In Irwin's last magazine interview, Bindi told the September edition of marie claire in it's Father's Day special just how much her dad meant to her.

"I love that he's funny, he's entertaining and he's always there when I need him most," she said.

"I'm proud to have a dad like that, who takes on conservation issues around the world.

"I love him very, very much."

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5235525,00.jpg

For Irwin, the rare father-daughter interview and photo was so treasured he requested all photos from the shoot be sent to him - a series Bindi will now treasure forever.

While Irwin had knocked back previous interview requests, he agreed to the shoot as it was "something he and Bindi could do together," a spokeswoman for the magazine said.

In the interview he said his daughter had inherited his love of animals: "The most important thing in Bindi's life is that she's grown up in a zoo. Bindi's passionate about animals, but she's also into singing, dancing and dress-ups, like any other little girl.

"I'd do anything to spend time with my daughter." :crying:

[BlueHUMMERH2]

Stonefish Hunt Lead to Tragedy (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20361481-2,00.html)

According to cinematographer and captain of Irwin's support boat, Peter West, Irwin was the consumate entertainer on Fathers' Day, his last full day alive, sharing tales with his crew to lift them from a despondency about being away from their families.

Mr West, who was working with the famed Crocodile Hunter for the first time, said Irwin only ever had two topics of conversation: "Work and family."

"We were on the boat and discussing how filming was proceeding and listening to Steve's stories," Mr West said.

"It just went into family and he knew I had my first baby at home and that I was missing my first Fathers' Day.

"He was saying how he missed, like all of us, his family and we started trading stories, including how my little girl (10 months old) couldn't yet say dad.

"We all had a great laugh when he said, 'Well, that's better than me because I got called mum, mum for the first month'."

Unknown to Irwin was that his wife, Terri and two children - Bindi, 8 and Bob, 2 - were trying to call him for Fathers' Day.

Irwin did not receive the message sent before his death. Friend John Stainton yesterday said he last spoke to Terri and the children about a week ago.

"We missed a phone call on the boat because communication on the boat was very patchy," he said. "We missed a phone call from her and the children."

However, on the afternoon following Irwin's death, Mr Stainton discovered a text message on his mobile from Terri. "I had an SMS on my phone from her saying that the children send their love, that was all," he said. Irwin had just spent a month with his children in central Cape York's Lakefield National Park catching crodiles for research. Mr Stainton said that Irwin had captured 32 crocodiles in five weeks and was doing "mind-blowing research" on tracking their movements.

"Steve said to me on the boat, on Croc One, at the end of the Lakefield research trip, as we were leaving to go out for this doco, 'John, I've had the best month of my life'. I said, 'Gee, that's a big statement, Steve' and he said, 'No, it's the best month of my life' and that's great."

[Jim_Cantore]

Oh come on, Steve Irwin was a pussy. Only a pussy would die from a stingray. Beside they don't even sting- ghey.

:dancingbanana: :dancingbanana: :dancingbanana: :dancingbanana: :dancingbanana: :dancingbanana:

[Geraldo]

I'm doing a story on Steve tomorrow on SpeedChannel. I have a copy of the tape that will be on my website in about an hour. It's an interesting piece.

[Sewie]

crikey :(

[KenP]

I guess he DID try to swim away, but the little fcker still caught him.

[Big Z]

I guess he DID try to swim away, but the little fcker still caught him.

Oh..You're Bad! :jump: .LMFAO! :D

[wpage]

Regretably like Yule Gibbons from Natural Causes!:OWNED:

[GLBLWARMR]

I guess he DID try to swim away, but the little fcker still caught him.

Well you would be pissed too if he stuck his finger up your ass!!!

Guess he isn't as fast in the water as he is on land!!!!

[KenP]

They just got his headstone up:

[DennisAJC]

They just got his headstone up:


:jump:

[KenP]

:jump:

[BlueHUMMERH2]

:jump: Poor Steve Irwin.