Day: September 4, 2006

Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin died in a freak accident.

Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.

Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray’s barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef.

. . . The stingray is a flat, triangular-shaped fish, commonly found in tropical waters.

It gets its name from the razor-sharp barb at the end of its tail, coated in toxic venom, which the animal uses to defend itself with when it feels threatened.

Attacks on humans are a rarity – only one other person is known to have died in Australia from a stingray attack, at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1945.

I enjoyed watching his show on TV and admired his commitment to the preservation of wildlife and his opposition to any kind of hunting.

It is one of those things that I am going to remember for a long while. My month long stay in Sydney is almost over. I had just finished dinner and switched on the TV and the channel that the TV was tuned on to was just getting started with the news headlines. I could hardly believe it. Life is a random draw and you never know when your number is up.

Steve will remain a great Australian hero.