Steve Irwin Death Footage
There's going to be one less morbid tape soiling the airwaves these days.
4 is the fifth anniversary of the death of Steve Irwin, the Australian wildlife presenter fatally speared by a stingray's barb while filming on the Great Barrier Reef. His death was a shock. The Steve Irwin tape (lost death footage of stingray attack; 2006) Stone Temple Pilots live at Rolling Rock Town Fair 2001 (partially lost concert footage; 2001) Sue Lightning 'Final Chatterbate Stream' (lost adult livestream of trans sex worker; 2017) Super Bowl II (partially found live television footage of gridiron football game; 1968). Jan 12, 2007 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin holds a Sumatran tiger cub south of Sydney, April 27, 2004. The only video of Irwin's fatal encounter with a stingray has been destroyed, according to his widow.
In her first interview since her husband's death, Steve Irwin's widow, Terri, said that the video footage captured of the Crocodile Hunter's run-in with the stingray that killed him will never be broadcast on television.
'No. No. What purpose would that serve,' Terri Irwin told ABC's 20/20 in a segment set to air Wednesday, adding that she has never watched the tape, either. 'It was an accident so stupid. It was like running with a pencil. It was not risk he was taking. It was just an accident.'
Irwin, 44, was killed Sept. 4 while filming a documentary near Australia's Great Barrier Reef when he was stung in the heart by a stingray. Wildlife experts have called the TV star and conservationist's death a 'freak accident.'
More than 5,000 people gathered last Tuesday at Irwin's Australia Zoo to pay tribute to the man known the world over for his 'Crikey' outbursts and enthusiasm for some of nature's deadliest creatures.
'I have to make sure the zoo keeps running,' Terri Irwin told 20/20's Barbara Walters. 'He planned all that masterfully. He planned this wonderful business so that it could continue if anything happened to him.'
Despite Irwin's jovial demeanor, Terri Irwin said that her late husband had a feeling he wasn't going to live to a ripe old age, and not just because he bucked the odds every day, cozying up to poisonous snakes and wrestling with creatures from the deep. 'He'd talk about it often,' she said. 'But it wasn't because of any danger from wildlife. That was never a consideration. He just felt life could be dangerous.'
Terri, who's from Oregon, and Steve Irwin tied the knot in 1992, six months after meeting in Australia, where Terri was on vacation. 'I fell then and there, love at first sight,' she said.
The khaki-clad Croc Hunter told the pretty American that he had a girlfriend, though.
'I was a little bit devastated,' she told Walters. But, luckily that 'girlfriend' turned out to be Irwin's pet dog, Sue.
'I had romance like I didn't think existed anymore, a wonderful romance,' Terri Irwin, who frequently traveled with her mate on his adventures and costarred in the 2002 film The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, said. 'He was passionate and determined and enthusiastic.'
It wasn't always paradise in the Outback, of course, but the Irwins made it work. 'There were so many things that made me crazy,' Terri recalled, 'like his desire to do everything now. He had a real sense of urgency with his life and no side-view business plan. If you got plans, we'll do them now.'
Steve Irwin Death Footage
The Croc Hunter's other half said that she is coping with her husband's death 'one minute at a time, sometimes an hour at a time.'
'With great faith, great determination,' she said. 'I have two beautiful children. And they really are my strength.'
Eight-year-old Bindi told the crowd at her father's public memorial service that she plans to carry on his conservationist efforts and promote his love for nature. The little girl's speech, which she studiously read from a piece of notepaper, prompted a standing ovation from the thousands in attendance.
Bindi, who also has a two-year-old brother, Robert, is already making good on her word, hosting a series on the Discovery Network called Bindi the Jungle Girl.
'Bindi has a spirituality about her that I've seen with Steve,' Terri Irwin said. 'She has unbelievable sensitivity. She has an uncanny connection with wildlife. She has a love for them that was just like her dad's.'
In early September 2006, 44-year-old wildlife expert and TV personality Steve Irwin was filming a documentary called Ocean’s Deadliest off the coast of north-eastern Australia. On September 4, due to bad weather, he decided to film some shots in shallow water instead, for his daughter’s TV show.
Irwin was snorkelling at Batt Reef – part of the Great Barrier Reef, near Port Douglas – when, according to cameraman Justin Lyons, they went in for “one last shot” with an eight-foot stingray.
“All of a sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly with its tail. Hundreds of strikes in a few seconds,” Lyons later said.
“I didn’t even know it had caused any damage. It wasn’t until I panned the camera back and Steve was standing in a huge pool of blood that I realised something was wrong.”
Irwin had been stabbed in the heart by the stingray’s foot-long barb. He was rushed out of the water and onto his team’s boat, Croc One, where Lyons attempted to resuscitate him.
“He just sort of calmly looked up at me and said, ‘I’m dying’. And that was the last thing he said,” Lyons later told Australian TV channel Network Ten.
“We hoped for a miracle. I did CPR on him for over an hour before the medics came, but then they pronounced him dead within 10 seconds of looking at him.”
Attacks by stingrays are extremely rare – and while their barbs are coated in venom, it was the strike to the heart, not the poison, that caused Irwin’s death.
'They have one or two barbs in the tails which are not only coated in toxic material but are also like a bayonet,” explained Australian wildlife filmmaker David Ireland.
“If it hits any vital organs it's as deadly as a bayonet.'
Australian Prime Minister John Howard led the tributes to Irwin, calling his death “a huge loss” to the country. “He was a wonderful character, he was a passionate environmentalist, he brought entertainment and excitement to millions of people,” said Howard.
“I really do feel Australia has lost a wonderful and colourful son.”
Irwin was buried in a private ceremony at Australia Zoo, the 100-acre wildlife park created by his parents and owned by Irwin and his wife Terri. Flags on the Sydney Harbour Bridge were lowered to half-mast in his honour.
On September 20, more than 5,000 people – including John Howard and actors Russell Crowe, Cameron Diaz and Hugh Jackman – attended a memorial service at the zoo’s Crocoseum stadium.
Steve Irwin Death Footage Clear
Irwin’s eight-year-old daughter Bindi spoke at the service, saying that her father had been 'working to change the world so everyone would love wildlife like he did'.
'I have the best daddy in the whole world and I will miss him every day,” she said. “When I see a crocodile, I will always think of him.'
Steve Irwin
Irwin’s father Bob also paid tribute to his son. “Please do not grieve for Steve, he's at peace now,” he told the crowd. “Grieve for the animals. They have lost the best friend they ever had, and so have I.”