Crocodile Hunter dies

Crikey! Given Irwin's love for danger, wasn't this kind of ending inevitable?

RIP...

 

From ABC Regional News:

The naturalist and television star Steve Irwin has died in a diving accident in far north Queensland. He was 44.

Police say he was stung through the heart by a stingray while diving off Port Douglas.

He was filming a documentary when the accident occurred around midday AEST near the Low Isles.

A helicopter arrived with paramedics on board to try to resuscitate him, but it was too late.

 

Reports are saying it was a stingray barb to the heart.

Which is kinda hard to visualize for me. Does the thing just start backing into you? The barbs are attached to the tail. I was under the impression most stingray injuries occured from people stepping on them.

Edited to add:

http://www.clubcruceros.org/StingrayInjuries.html

Still doesn't explain how you get a spine to the heart. But apparently others have been killed this way.

 

As a pretty dedicated Discovery Channel watcher, this sucks. Prayers to his family, especially the young'ns he left behind.

 

He may have been swimming under it, or behind it since he was filming a documentary.

 

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20349560-661,00.html

 

G'night, mate.

 

Very sad.

Watch enough Discovery channel, and I felt like I knew the guy. A good guy.

Did a funny ESPN commercial a couple years ago where he goes after the UF mascot.

I'm bummed.

 

I guess it was only a matter of time. It is for all of us, but when you do the kind of stuff Irwin did, that time could come a little sooner than it does for most of us.
RIP.

 

He was a cheap buy in dead pools every year.

 

From Reuters

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2006-09-04T065739Z_01_SP34161_RTRUKOC_0_US-AUSTRALIA-IRWIN.xml

 

My wife made an interesting observation about this when I told her the news this morning. Her first question, the one she always asks in these situations, was "didn't he have kids?"

Her second was, "Isn't this how he'd want to go out, if he had to?"

And I guess she's right -- it's not like he got hit by a bus or died of a heart attack sitting on a couch. Irwin played a dangerous game of poker with his career every day of his life, and fate finally pulled out a royal flush on him.

RIP, dude.