Videotape of Steve Irwin’s last moments shows him pulling a poisonous stingray barb from his chest but no evidence that he had provoked the fish, officials said Tuesday, as tributes poured in for TV’s beloved “Crocodile Hunter.”
Irwin, 44, who made a career out of getting dangerously close to deadly beasts, was stabbed through the heart Monday while swimming with the stingray during filming of a new TV program on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
John Stainton, Irwin’s manager who was among the crew on the reef, said the fatal blow that came while Irwin was snorkeling was caught on videotape, and described viewing the footage as having the “terrible” experience of watching a friend die.
“It shows that Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here (in the chest), and he pulled it out and the next minute he’s gone,” Stainton told reporters in the Queensland state city of Cairns, where Irwin’s body was taken for an autopsy.
