comment #1

Ross says ...

It's a sad and unfortunate accident... but not really that surprising. He's been living on the edge for a while. He was an amazing character... I'll miss him. I mostly feel bad for the two kids he left behind.

comment #2

hiviper says ...

reports are that he actually pulled the barb out of his chest before he went unconscious - all captured on video.

comment #3

hiviper says ...

also - to add on my comments above, I feel really bad about his kids too. At least his 8 year old will sort of remember him, plus he left quite a record for them to go back to. His wife always seemed pretty cool in his shows, while being much less of a daredevil. I'm sure she'll instill the same love of animals in his kids that he would have.

comment #4

MAGGA says ...

Apparently they may show his death on TV at some point. Tasteful

comment #5

christian says ...

An awful story, but did anybody think this wouldn't happen to him at some point?

comment #6

Arrow77 says ...

Honestly christian, I really didn't think it would. The guy was an expert in his field an even though he was a daredevil, all his stunts seemed meticulously prepared. Most good stuntmen in Hollywood don't die from their work and that's what Irwin really was.

Ultimately, what probably killed him is that this animal is really not dangerous compared to the animals he was used to deal with. He wasn't as prepared as usual so no one predicted the reaction a sting ray would have with one man above him and another one in front.

comment #7

christian says ...

I dunno, arrow77. I think if you spend most of your waking hours chasing alligators or venomous critters, you stand a high average of getting tagged.

Plus, the focus on "up close reality" put Irwin into a role of perhaps overreaching his subjects. From the report, it sounds as if the manta ray was cornered by Irwin and camera team. That does not seem like the behavior of a meticulous observer, but a TV showman, which Irwin was.

Remember the grizzly man.

comment #8

Arrow77 says ...

That's exactly the thing: he was not the grizzly man! Treadwell was just a hippy ecologist who pretended dangerous animals weren't as dangerous as they seemed, that they were only misunderstood. There's nothing in Irwin's body of work that could lead to believe that crocodiles aren't really dangerous. If anything, his behavior made them look more dangerous than any other animal show around. Sure, he loved them and thought they were misunderstood, but he always recognized the danger and explained why they were dangerous and why they reacted that way.

I explained earlier that I really thought that on that particular incident, there's been a mistake from him, the cameraman or both when they ignored the danger of cornering the ray. Like I said, it looks like it's the apparent lack of danger that killed him. Every experts says they're surprised that it's THAT animal that killed him, that he was unlucky.

Chasing alligators and crocodiles is a job a lot of people do and I think that with his expertise, he would never have let one of them get the best of him. He got killed by an animal he didn't knew as well.

comment #9

B8ovin says ...

Geez. I guess you're gonna get this kind of reaction on a Hollywood blog. Look, I'll take ONE episode of David Attenborough's "The Trials of Life" over Steve Irwin's ENTIRE body of work. And just to show how crazy all this hand wringing is, when Stephen J. Gould died there was hardly any sign of public mourning. So the co-author of "punctuated equilibrium" is less missed than a tv "naturalist"? The difference here is like the difference between missing white women and missing everyone else on the cable news shows. Next thing you know, there will be two page articles in all the newsmagazines: "New Ocean Threat: The Deadly Sting Ray- Is it safe to go into the water?" If this guy wasn't on tv who'd care? So he helped create a bunch of clone shows. Is the world better off for that? No real science, no real advancement of knowledge. I feel bad for his family, but lay off the whole "oooo the guy is dead, don't be so mean." He was going to get killed by an animal sooner or later, and he put himself in a position to do just that by not respecting a creature he didn't know well enough.

comment #10

christian says ...

I knida get your point A77, but I stand by mine. It may be natural for there to be crocodile wranglers, but it doesn't make it any less dangerous. Guys who de-venom snakes get big bucks, but they're still in danger.

I don't think Irwin was as carefree as grizzly man, but he certainly thought that providence was on his side.

In other terrible words, live by the swordfish...