Steve Irwin’s death in 2006 shocked the world
There are not many people who don’t know the name Steve Irwin and the absolute joy he brought to viewers at home and visitors to his attractions.
The Aussie zookeeper was featured on a number of TV shows, such as The Crocodile Hunter, New Breed Vets and Croc Files.
But it was during the filming Oceans Deadliest at the Great Barrier Reef with Philippe Cousteau Jr. on 4 September 2006 that he lost his life.
Irwin, 44, had been snorkelling in Batt Reef near Port Douglas around North Queensland at the time to capture nature in the wild.
It was there that he was pierced in the chest by a stingray, which stabbed Irwin ‘100 times’, according to cameraman Justin Lyons, who was there that day.
It was one of those punctures which caught him in the heart and lungs.
While the crew desperately attempted to save him on land before paramedics came to perform CPR, there was nothing that could be done – with Irwin being pronounced dead on the scene.
Steve Irwin was killed during filming a TV episode (YouTube / Animal Planet)
The moment of his attack was also captured, as Irwin’s one rule for his camera crew was to always keep filming, but all the tapes were later destroyed, his wife Terri Irwin said.
Before his death, however, he’d made a request to his crew which sadly set his death in motion. That day, Irwin was not meant to be at sea as filming had been cancelled due to the bad weather.
But he decided to film a segment for his daughter Bindi Irwin’s TV show instead, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
As per The Daily Mail, John Stainton, the director, shared: “Suddenly, he expressed interest in encountering some typically harmless stingrays. It should have been an innocuous encounter for a children’s program.”
While stingrays tend to be docile, as soon as he swam over it, it started ‘stabbing wildly with its tail’.
He was killed after being attacked a stingray (Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In 2014, Lyons told Studio 10: “It probably thought that Steve’s shadow was a tiger shark, which feeds on them very regularly. I panned with the camera as the stingray swam away, I didn’t even know it had caused any damage.
“It wasn’t until I panned the camera back, that Steve was standing in a huge pool of blood, that I realized something had gone wrong.”
Lyons also recalled of the moment Irwin realised what was happening: “He just sort of calmly looked up at me and said, ‘I’m dying.’ And that was the last thing he said.”
Stainton promised to keep the tapes of Irwin’s death private, telling Larry King in a 2006 interview with CNN: “When that is finally released [after being investigated], it will never see the light of day. Ever. Ever.
“I actually saw it, but I don’t want to see it again. I would never want that tape shown.”
Irwin had made the decision to film a segment for his daughter’s show on the day he died (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Despite the tape having never been released, many on social media claimed to have seen it, however, it was revealed to be fake as Terri called it a ‘complete fabrication’.
She told You magazine in 2018: “After Steve died, 100 million viewers watched a video of his death that was released on YouTube.
“That film was a complete fabrication exploiting people’s sadness. I have never watched the real footage. Why would I?
“I know how my husband died, and I was relieved that the children weren’t on the boat as they usually would be; it would have been horrendous if they had witnessed it.”
