Steve Irwin, the fascinatingly annoying “Crocodile Hunter,” is dead. The crocs called in a favor with a sting ray to give them plausible deniability.
Friends believe he may have died instantly when struck by a stingray as he filmed a sequence for his eight-year-old daughter Bindi’s new TV series. Irwin’s friend of 20 years, Ferre De Deyne said Irwin had been struck by the stingray while filming. “The stingray just happened to be swimming around and out of the blue whacked his tail at him,” he said.
[…] Irwin had been filming a new documentary called Ocean’s Deadliest with friend and manager John Stainton at Batt Reef, off Port Douglas about 11am. “He came over the top of a stingray and the stingray’s barb went up and went into his chest and put a hole into his heart,” Mr Stainton said. “It’s likely that he possibly died instantly when the barb hit him, and I don’t think that he … felt any pain. He died doing what he loved best.”
Like Les, I wasn’t a big fan, but he was successful and he had an entertaining and fairly harmless schtick, and was always good for a fun parody. A lot worse could be said for a number of folks in show biz.
They say his death was caught on video. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn up on YouTube.