Irwin, Steve
Steve Irwin (also known as the Crocodile Hunter) lived from 2/22/64 to 9/4/06. He delighted people of all ages with his over-the-top personality, antics with fearsome animals, and Australian accent. At times, he seemed invincible, able to wrestle giant alligators and never get eaten by one even though hew was rapidly lunged at in slippery muddy swamps. Surprisingly, Steve Irwin did not fie from an alligator but from a stingray. It is this injury that is focused on below.

On 9/4/06, at around 11am, Steve Irwin was filming an underwater documentary entitled Ocean’s Deadliest in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia (east of Port Douglas). He began swimming in shallow water at Batt Reef, near the Low Isles, when he began to swim above a stingray, estimated to be about 2.5mm from wingtip to wingtip. The stingray apparently felt threatened, stopped, turned, and lashed its tail upwards. A poisonous stingray barb on the stingray’s tail pierced Irwin’s chest and entered his heart. There is actually not much distance between the outer chest wall and the heart, making it easy to pierce that organ. What actually killed him, however, was pulling the barb out of his chest because this caused more damage to the heart than the initial impact. The poison had nothing to do with his death. Some medical professionals have stated that it is actually safer to temporally leave such an object in the body and wait for emergency medical providers to remove it. However, when someone has an object pierce their heart, the first instinct will naturally be to pull it out. After pulling out the stingray barb, Mr. Irwin collapsed. He was breathing but barely conscious and died by the time he was taken on his boat, Croc One.

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