I feel sorry for Bindi and Bob they both lost their father.

Steve Irwin didn't die of a heart attack, he was attacked by a stingray, but it did pierce his heart, and usually they aren't that fatal, but this was one of the rare cases it was. Here is what happened.

Shortly after 01:00 UTC (11:00 AEST) on September 4, 2006, Irwin was fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray spine whilst snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef, at Batt Reef, which is located off the coast of Port Douglas in Queensland. Irwin was in the area filming his own documentary, to be called The Ocean's Deadliest, but weather had stalled filming. Irwin decided to take the opportunity to film some shallow water shots for a segment in the television program his daughter Bindi was hosting,[45] when, according to his friend and colleague, John Stainton, he swam too close to one of the stingrays. "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 the Croc One.

The events were caught on camera, and a copy of the footage was handed to the Queensland Police.[46] After reviewing the footage of the incident and speaking to the cameraman who recorded it, marine documentary filmmaker and former spearfisherman Ben Cropp speculated that the stingray "felt threatened because Steve was alongside and there was the cameraman ahead". In such a case, the stingray responds to danger by automatically flexing the serrated spine on its tail (which can measure up to 25 cm or about 10 inches in length) in an upward motion.

Cropp said Irwin had accidentally boxed in the animal. "It stopped and twisted and threw up its tail with the spike, and it caught him in the chest. It's a defensive thing. It's like being stabbed with a dirty dagger". The stinging of Irwin by the bull ray was "a one-in-a-million thing," Cropp told Time magazine. "I have swum with many rays, and I have only had one do that to me."[47]

Initially, when Irwin's colleague, John Stainton, was interviewed by CNN's Larry King late on September 4, 2006 he denied the suggestion that Irwin had pulled the spine out of his chest, or that he had seen footage of the event, insisting that the anecdote was "absolute rubbish."[48] The following day, when he first described the video to the media, he stated, "Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here [in the chest], and he pulled it out and the next minute he's gone".[46] It is thought, in the absence of a coroner's report, that a combination of the toxins and the puncture wound from the spine caused Irwin to die of cardiac arrest, with most damage being inflicted by tears to arteries or other main blood vessels.[49] A similar incident in Florida a month later in which a man survived a stingray barb through the heart showed that Irwin may have caused his own death by removing the barb.[50] Until the coroner's report is released, however, the precise cause of Irwin's death remains conjecture.

Crew members aboard his boat called the emergency services in the nearest city of Cairns and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to the nearby Low Islets to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later.[45] According to Dr. Ed O'Loughlin, who treated Irwin, "it became clear fairly soon that he had non-survivable injuries. . . . He had a penetrating injury to the left front of his chest. He had lost his pulse and wasn't breathing."[51]


Cairns, QueenslandIrwin's body was flown to a morgue in Cairns. His wife, Terri Irwin, was on a walking tour in Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park in Tasmania at the time, and returned via a private plane from Devonport to the Sunshine Coast with their two children.[45]

Fatalities due to stingrays are infrequent but occurrences are not collated.[52] The attack on Irwin is believed to be the only fatality from a stingray ever captured on film.[53]

Speculations have surfaced which suggest the tape of Steve Irwin's death may be released for broadcast on television.[54] However, the opposite has also been stated. Irwin's friend and manager John Stainton told CNN's Larry King "[The tape] should be destroyed".[55] There have even been reports that the video was stolen and copied before being locked up [1]. Nevertheless, Irwin had commented that, if he were to be killed by an animal, he would want the incident filmed.[citation needed] However, in an ABC interview with Barbara Walters, Irwin's wife Terri said she hasn't seen the film of her husband's deadly encounter with the stingray and that it won't ever be shown on television.[56]