04 September 2006

Crikey!

Steve Irwin, the 'Crocodile Hunter', was shooting a segment for a series called Ocean's Deadliest when he was "stung in the chest by a stingray" in Northern Australia and died.
According to University of Queensland marine neuroscientist Shaun Collin, stingrays have a serrated, toxin-loaded barb, or spine, up to 25 centimeters (10 inches) long on top of their tails. The barb flexes reflexively if a ray is frightened, and a sting to a person is usually excruciatingly painful but not deadly. Collin said he suspected Irwin died because the barb pierced under his ribcage and stabbed directly into his heart. "It was extraordinarily bad luck. It's not easy to get spined by a stingray, and to be killed by one is very rare," Collin said.

While his overweening arrogance with wild animals (like his being in "total control" of the 13-foot crocodile he was feeding in 2004 with his one-month-old son Bob under his arm) may have gotten him in the end, I do wonder what the fuck they were doing shooting this at 2am.
Let's see, underwater, oh-dark-thirty in the morning, fifty miles offshore, hours from a hospital in Cairns and a thousand air miles from a major hospital in Darwin (which is already "back of beyond" anyway), fucking about with deadly sea animals... Wonder if anything could go wrong?
Stupid arrogant twit. Well, he died as he lived...

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