Steve Irwin aka "The Crocodile Hunter" is dead

[Roman]

isnt that the worst thing to do? if you are stabbed, i thought you were supposed to keep the object where it is, to keep the hole plugged up

Not if it's poisenous !
He probably knew all to well how deep in trouble he was when it happened.

 

[jimmymac]

seems to be conflicting reports on this one at the moment, other reports are saying that the camera man underwater with him didnt see it happen, steves body simply floated to the sruface and traces of blood were seen in the water. Once on the boat he was already dead as they attempted the kiss of life and resus on him.....

might be a couple of days before we get the full story methinks

 

[Blind_Io]

It would not have mattered if he removed the barb or not, if it went to his heart the poison would have been spread through his body in a matter of seconds, long before he could bleed out.

 

[No Boss]

It would not have mattered if he removed the barb or not, if it went to his heart the poison would have been spread through his body in a matter of seconds, long before he could bleed out.

Exactly.

Quick and merciful... or Slow and ungodly painful.

 

[watto]

The Queensland police have confirmed that they have seen footage of the incident. Yes, it was all caught on camera. It is reported he pulled the barb from his chest and collapsed within a few seconds of doing so.

I don't have a link to this as I read it in today's paper... which is paper, so I can't copy and paste.

 

[//Dave]

here ya go:

NEW YORK (AP) ? "If I'm going to die," the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin said in a 2002 interview, "at least I want it filmed."

He spoke with his usual humor, and clearly had no idea what would happen four years later. But the fact is, a tape does exist of Irwin's fatal encounter with a stingray while filming a TV show. And so the question arises: In the age of instant Web videos, might it get out? And in the broader sense, is making footage of a death public ever justified?

For its part, Discovery Communications, the network where Irwin became a star, said there was absolutely no truth to rumors that the footage, now in possession of police in Queensland, Australia, might be released.

But that doesn't mean there aren't concerns that someone could attempt to get their hands on it and publicize it for lurid means ? or just to show they had it. That, said media analyst Martin Kaplan, would be tantamount to a snuff film.

"The only remote justification for publicizing this would be accident prevention," said Kaplan, of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "But that argument is a stretch." Experts say deaths from a stingray encounter are exceedingly rare.

Irwin died Monday at age 44 after being stabbed in the chest by the stingray's poisonous spine while filming on the Great Barrier Reef.

He was hugely popular in the United States, becoming a star as the "Crocodile Hunter" on Discovery's Animal Planet channel. In an interview with Associated Press Radio in 2002, he discussed his passion for grappling with crocodiles: "That's what my hand and my brains are designed to do," he said with his trademark enthusiasm. "That's what I have to give to the world."

In the same interview, he noted: "If I'm going to die, at least I want it filmed ... If we blew a million dollars worth of cameras, at least we could have gone to MGM and gone, 'Hey, look at this tape.'"

Irwin's manager and close friend, John Stainton, had the painful experience of watching the videotape where Irwin pulls the stingray barb from his chest. He called it "shocking."

"It's a very hard thing to watch, because you are actually witnessing somebody die, and it's terrible," he told reporters.

The fact that a tape exists recalls the death of Timothy Treadwell, a bear enthusiast who lived among them for a dozen years in Alaska before being fatally mauled in 2003. A video camera with the lens cap on captured the audio of that attack. It is in possession of a friend and has never emerged in public ? though in his acclaimed documentary "Grizzly Man," director Werner Herzog was seen listening to it with headphones on.

Samuel G. Freedman, who teaches a media ethics class at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, says the issue is "whether there is any compelling public interest" in the release of something so shocking as footage of a death. Here, he says, there clearly isn't.

"The lay person is not going into the water trying to have encounters with stingrays," Freedman said. "It would be purely titillation and necrophilia if anyone were to show this."

There are dramatically different cases, Freedman believes, where there is a compelling public interest in having the option ? as in the voluntary click of a mouse ? to see the reality of a grisly death. To learn the harsh lessons of war, for example, or to witness the brutality of the beheadings by Islamic militants in Iraq ? videos that were posted on Web sites used by the militants. (Others have argued that the existence of the militant videos is apalling.)

But those are very particular cases. In general, the explanations fall flat, says Kaplan of the Annenberg School, as when the Italian magazine that recently published a photo of Princess Diana getting oxygen moments after her fatal car crash called it "tender" and "touching."

In an era where almost everything ends up making it to the Web, is it inevitable that such a tape as that of Irwin's death would emerge?

"Only in the sense that there's a race for the bottom in our culture," Kaplan says. "This will take substantial vigilance on the part of the family."

 

[Evo7]

Steve to have an ordinary funeral:

The father of Australian "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin has spoken out against a state funeral for his late son being offered by the government.

Bob Irwin said the popular naturalist had been an "ordinary bloke" and would not have wanted a grand funeral.

Speaking to reporters outside his son's zoo in the north-eastern state of Queensland on Wednesday, Bob Irwin thanked all those who have been paying their respects.

But he made clear that if it had been up to his son, a state funeral would have been refused.

"He's just an ordinary bloke, and he wants to be remembered as an ordinary bloke," Mr Irwin said.

And his manager is calling for the tape to be destroyed:

Meanwhile his manager has said film footage of the ebullient TV naturalist's final moments should never be shown.

The tape was currently in police custody and should be destroyed, John Stainton told the CNN television network.

The tape apparently shows Mr Irwin pulling the barb left by a stingray's tail from his chest moments before his death.

"It should be destroyed," Mr Stainton said. "When that (tape) is finally released it will never see the light of day, ever.

"I actually saw it and I don't want to see it again," he said.