posted
You know, to put it quite bluntly, that really sucks. He was awesome. Actually, he still is awesome. I'm pretty bummed about this.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Of all the things that could have killed him, a harmless stingray did him in? Freaky.
He was pretty endearing in his own special way, I have to admit. It's so sad for his wife and little kid--she won't even find out until she gets back from Tasmania, according to that article. That would be awful.
posted
Wow. He was one of those guys you were always saying something like this would happen to, but never actually thought it would.
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My entire family used to watch his show before switching channels to watch Iron Chef, Sunday nights. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I think he'd have been an awesome dad if had time to impart his enthusiasm and zest for life on his son.
We can say though, that he lived life to the fullest, and he was out there chasing his dreams all around the world. Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I know it doesn't make up for anything, but at least he died while doing what he loved to do. I liked the way his enthusiasm could interest you in whatever subject he was talking about.
I shall miss his presence. Posts: 993 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I couldn't believe it when I saw it, but the first thing I thought is, "I hope at least he died wrastling with a crock or something." Pretty close.
How many people can say they immortalized a phrase? Irwin did it at least twice. If I hear "crocodile hunter" or "Croikey!" I know who I think of.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I'm sorry, but for all the "I can't believe this happened" responses on this thread, I just gotta say my first reaction was: "Well we all knew this was gonna happen!"
The guy took risks. He obviously worked very hard both to educate the world about various creatures and habitats, and also to help preserve those creatures and habitats. Those are valuable endeavors. But for all the "don't do this at home" kind of stunts he pulled, you just knew one of them was going to get him.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Well KQ, any way you slice it, his eventuall death was going to be called ironic. If he had died a natural death, then people would have commented on it the same way they'll blame him for dying doing what made him special. Its pretty sad, but its the cookie he chose to crumble for himself.
Edit: and not that I was dying to be the first to hint that he had it coming, because nobody has it coming no matter what, in my opinion.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:I'm sorry, but for all the "I can't believe this happened" responses on this thread, I just gotta say my first reaction was: "Well we all knew this was gonna happen!"
Death by stingray is a freak accident, whether you are Steve Irwin or Just Some Guy. It's nearly impossible to get killed by a stingray.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: I'm sorry, but for all the "I can't believe this happened" responses on this thread, I just gotta say my first reaction was: "Well we all knew this was gonna happen!"
The guy took risks. He obviously worked very hard both to educate the world about various creatures and habitats, and also to help preserve those creatures and habitats. Those are valuable endeavors. But for all the "don't do this at home" kind of stunts he pulled, you just knew one of them was going to get him.
My thoughts exactly. I wish it hadn't happened, but I'm hardly surprised.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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A drink for the man who did the impossible! Dying while doing something you love, that's gotta count for something. And no, I'm not being sarcastic about this. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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So it's not the general category of freak accident that's surprising, but the specific category of freak accident?
Just Some Guy doesn't go around pulling crocodiles' tails. For that matter, Irwin was so used to pulling crocodile tails that it was pretty safe.. for him. But in addition to working with crocs and any other dangerous animal that may have become routine for him, he also went out of his way to deal with increasingly exotic and dangerous species.
As far as how dangerous stingrays are, I remember reading an article in National Geographic about fishing for Pirhannas in South America. The local fishermen waded around in the water with the pirhannas, which didn't really scare them. What scared them was the fresh water stingrays.
From reading up a little from the net, it sounds like stingrays have a real capacity for causing damage. The fact that he got hit in the chest rather than the leg is probably all it took to kill him.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I've swum in the ocean with stingrays, petted them, and fed them. The biggest danger is if you acidentally step on one, because they blend with the ground, and get stung--in the leg. A barb going into someone's chest (and heart, apparently) is pretty dang unheard of.
(Now, I'd never encountered freshwater stingrays; I don't know if they're more dangerous or something.)
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
His death is the third ever stingray death in Australia.
I'd say that ranks as a freak accident.
(And by that token, swimming with sting rays is a lot less extreme risk-taking then say, driving a car down a freeway.)
{Edit - yeah, or what Avidreader said. Also, I don't know if there is any difference between salt or freshwater stingrays - but this was in the ocean, so would have been saltwater.)
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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"This morning Steve decided to shoot a couple of segments for a new TV show that he's doing with his daughter Bindi, and with the cameramen went out onto the reef ... to film a segment on stingrays."
Doing a documentary on reefs is HARDLY one of his more life threatening endevours. Reading that he was "Gored to death" by a sting ray was just so impossible to me I had to read the specifics before I would believe it.
The chances of that sting ray rearing its sting at that moment and into that part of Steve is just very unlucky, how unlucky? I would say the chances are akin to a wasp flying up your nose, crawling its way up to your brain and chewing on brain tissue until your dead.
Reading this news really makes me sad, I will probably be thinking about Steve all day, but I'd like to think he is probably with his dad, and they both think it halarious that he went out that way. Honestly think about Steve telling you how he died, can you see him saying, "I can't believe I let that bloke get me like that, it just shows you that when you are with animals, they will try to defend themselves and you need to give them the distance and respect they deserve!"
Goodbye Steve, thanks for the good memories, and for bringing the world of animals to a new generation.
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Steve was a loon, in an amusing sort of way.
I remember one New Years' we were looking for something on TV to watch, and that was the only thing on. Watching him poke crocodiles with his bare hands and all, I remember joking "this is the type of guy that will hunt for great white sharks in the middle of the ocean, aboard a 4' aluminum dingy with a lump of meat the size of his leg."
Funny enough, two shows later in to the marathon, he did just that.
What's a bigger shame is that apparently the only footage the media can come up with is watching him dance his newborn child in front of a 10' crocodile. Give the guy some respect, will ya?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
This might be freaky, but it was Steve Irwin who was chattering in the background the last time I saw my grandmother in the nursing home before she died. He's always been associated with really awful, depressing memories for me; several other lonely folks in the home were staring blankly has he yelled about crocodiles on TV. It was so surreal; I haven't been able to watch or listen to him since that day.
I'm sad for his family but this bizarre death somehow fits with my already distorted impressions of him.
Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I've personally swum over wild stingrays, and believe me, cautious as I am, the possibility of one somehow managing to sting me in the chest and THROUGH the heart - I don't know if such an idea as ever ocurred to anyone before. Except maybe someone giving a speech on how harmless they are and being like, "Well, I suppose if one somehow managed to get you directly in the heart you might die, but that's never gonna happen."
And as to being more afraid of the stingrays, that may have been because getting stung results in a sincere, if temporary, desire for death. It HURTS. A little one got me on the foot on the Gulf Coast, and yowza.
Anyway, Steve Irwin did take a lot of risks, but the manner of death is pretty bizarre. I'll miss seeing him around, he loved life so much.
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But I couldn't watch him because every time he got near an animal, I would start thinking of his little kids and how bad it would be if he died.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Everything entails risks. Heck, many of his activities, given his experience and training, are likely less risky than some of the activities you engage in (such as driving or being driven anywhere). This almost certainly was, given the small number of incidents among the vast numbers of people who dive around reefs.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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kq, I know you said you left, but just in case you're still reading, I wonder - do you think it's wrong of my husband to go to work every day? He's in two of the most dangerous professions there are - firefighting and construction.
I absolutely accept the fact that he may one day die doing his job. I don't want him to quit doing it, though, because it's who he is. Steve Irwin was born to do what he did. He was raised by a father who did the same thing and the man had an enormous passion for wildlife and for letting the public see a different side of dangerous animals. For him to stop doing that just because he had a child would be for him to stop being who he was. I would rather my children have a father who loves them, but also loves his work and is happy with himself because I think that will make him a better father. Steve Irwin would have been a miserable man if he were, say, a banker sitting in an office all day. And miserable men trapped in jobs they hate don't make the best fathers, I don't think.
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I'm going to miss Steve a lot, I grew up watching his specials on the Discovery Channel. He's probably responsible for most of my feelings towards animal conservation. Not to mention the fact that he was so amazingly cool.
He's wrestling crocodiles in heaven now.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I was just catching up on this thread and was about to respond to ketchupqueen when I read Belle's post, and since she summed up my thoughts nicely (and has more credibility than I do, as I don't have a firefighter husband who, if memory serves me, was trained in crawling through narrow passages to find survivors) I'll leave it at mostly that.
I'm pretty sure his wife Terri knew what their life would be like when she married him, and he was working on a segment for a new show with his daughter; from all reports it sounds like he spent quite a lot of time with his family, who are just as passionate about animals and conservation as he was.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Steve Irwin died doing what he loved to do, in a relatively quick and painless fashion. That's nowhere near as good as not dying, but... you don't usually get a choice.
I will remember him for the enthusiasm he brought to his subject of study. The Crododile Hunter made a lot of otherwise unsavory beasties very cool.
Posts: 196 | Registered: May 2005
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Belle, it's interesting that you should say that; earlier today when I read KQ's post I thought the same thing, about Wes in particular.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I had no idea he was so well known outside of Australia. It nearly brought us to a national stand-still yesterday.
A lot of Australians had a bit of 'cultural cringe' about Steve, if you didn't get it, you'd think he was almost a caricature of an Australian. In reality, he was the quintessential Aussie - what we all are, just under the surface, no matter how sophisticated we like to pretend we are.
His death didn't happen because he lived a dangerous life. Stingrays aren't dangerous. Over four times as many people a year die from vending machines than have ever died from Stingrays.
posted
I have also sawm with stingrays and the thought of the barb plunging into my heart also never crossed my mind. CNN says the chances of that happening is "one-in-a-million".
That is so sad, though. But he did live a full, exuberant life and that can't be said for many (especially those only as young as 44).
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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A terrible loss for conservation. I remember when I first saw the Crocodile Hunter on TV, I was amazed that someone was championing the cause of the non-cuddly animals as passionately as he was. His methods were dangerous, but that was his point - to get in close to the animals, show you the beauty of the sorts of creatures most folks would avoid. It's also worth remembering that his methods were more dangerous for him, but safer for the animals. It's easy to think he's just a nutjob for jumping on the back of a croc in a mesh net to capture it, but it's a lot safer than a steel trap or drugs for the croc and that is what mattered to him.
Something caught my interest yesterday - they were replaying a few of the retrospective shows on Steve yesterday on Animal Planet. There was another time when he was out filming on his boat, when a call came out that some divers were swept away from their boat and lost. He didn't hear about much in the way of a rescue operation going on, so he stopped filming and started one of his own. He found one of the lost divers, who had been battered by 10 foot waves, and rescued him. Saved his life. That's what I think Steve was about, saving life. Whether it's a croc, a wallaby, a snake or a person.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Also, I don't know if there is any difference between salt or freshwater stingrays - but this was in the ocean, so would have been saltwater.)
