R.I.P. Crocodile Hunter

"Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray during a diving expedition. He was 44.

Irwin was filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Queensland state when he was stung, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on its Web site.

He collapsed at Batt Reef, near Low Isle and the resort town of Port Douglas, Queensland state police said in a statement. Port Douglas is about 1,260 miles north of Brisbane, the state capital.

A rescue helicopter rushed to the scene but Irwin had died, the statement said.

Queensland ambulance service spokesman Bob Hamil confirmed that a diver had been killed by a stingray off Lowe Isles Reef and said cause of death appeared to be a "stingray strike to the chest."

Stingrays have flat bodies and tails with serrated spines, which contain venom and can cause cuts and puncture wounds. The creatures are not aggressive and injury usually occurs when a swimmer or diver accidentally steps on one." - Associated Press


Poor bastard. Figures that he would die while fucking around with stingrays rather than getting his head chomped off by a massive croc. And you just know it wasn't an accident either, he had to have been trying to give the fucking thing a hug or a kiss or something. How do we know this? He got stung in the CHEST. Not the foot or ankle. The chest. So he was trying to be cute for his documentary by slapping a wet one on this poor stingray, and WHAM, right in the chest. Can you blame the stingray? I would try and get him off me by any means possible too. You have to feel bad for his kids though. Notice, I said "kids" not "wife and kids" because his wife was a willing participant in all of his stupid tv shows, so she had to know that he was risking his life daily. Now their kids get to grow up without a dad. Well done, Steve.