Steve Irwin i cant believe that the guy that has tackled 18 foot crocodile's got bested by a stingray. Condolences to his wife and daughter.

I heard about that too, gah that sucks bad....

I thought it was a joke cuz my friend did a mass emailing of "Croc hunter dies" so I looked it up online and sure enough he had. Really sucks. I thought that sting rays were gentle creatures that rarely ever attacked. Cant you go to sea world and pet stingrays?

Yeah, I read that he just accidentally cornered this stingray and out of self defense it stung him. CNN says the stinger is like being stabbed with a dirty dagger, so it's pretty serious. I heard one report that he was stabbed in the heart.

It's a freak accident though, and really sad. I feel bad for his wife and kids.

Yeah, it's very very uncommon. Stingray barbs are poisonous, but not fatally. It's the spine itself that is the bigger problem, just because it is big enough and the stingray is strong enough to spear someone rather easily. Stings typically just hurt like crap and people recover from it pretty quick, but he got slammed in just the wrong place. They said if it had been anywhere else, he would still be alive, but it went straight through his heart. And stingrays are normally docile creatures, most will let you ride on their backs. At some point during the year, though, they are pretty cranky 'cause the sharks and other predators are more active and the rays are on the lookout for them constantly.

Their cameraman was filming ahead of the ray and Steve was following it along and they think it just got spooked cause it felt like it was trapped. He had gotten too close to get away from it when it reacted.

It really sucks. He had two kids.

That is too sad!

X2

Crikey.