Steve Irwin died in freak accident (2 Viewers)
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Irwin tributes mount as shocking video revealed
As mourners made a shrine of Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo north of Brisbane, a colleague of the popular crocodile wrangler has revealed details of the freak accident which ended his life.
Video footage of Steve Irwin's last moments shows the Crocodile Man pulling out the stingray barb which had pierced his heart, according to Irwin's producer John Stainton.
Mr Stainton described the video as the worst thing he had ever seen.
"I have seen the footage and it's shocking," Mr Stainton told reporters in Cairns. "It's a very hard thing to watch because you're watching somebody die and it's terrible."
"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. That was it. The cameraman had to shut down."
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Steve Irwin's death: the facts
Steve Irwin was filming a documentary, Ocean's Deadliest, on the Great Barrier Reef east of Port Douglas when struck and killed by a stingray's barbed tail on Monday morning.
The man known worldwide as the Crocodile Hunter had been swimming in shallow water at Batt Reef, near the Low Isles, with a stingray estimated to be 2.5m from wingtip to wingtip.
The moment of the attack was captured on video.
"The footage shows him swimming in the water, the ray stopped and turned and that was it," boat-owner Peter West was reported as saying.
"There was no blood in the water, it was not that obvious ... something happened with this animal that made it rear and he was at the wrong position at the wrong time and if it hit him anywhere else we would not be talking about a fatality."
Others who have seen the video describe it as shocking, and say Irwin pulled the barb from his own heart before collapsing.
After the attack, his film crew bundled Irwin into an inflatable dinghy where they reported the 44-year-old as barely conscious but still breathing.
However, Irwin had died by the time the support team had got him on board his vessel, Croc One. Attempts by a doctor and paramedic to revive him on a nearby island failed and his body was flown to Cairns on Monday night.
Mr Irwin's death was only the third known stingray death in Australian waters. Both previous deaths were also caused by the stingray barb piercing the heart of the victims.
Shark and stingray expert Victoria Brims said the normally passive creatures only strike in defence, attacking with a bayonet-like barb when they feel threatened.
As mourners made a shrine of Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo north of Brisbane, a colleague of the popular crocodile wrangler has revealed details of the freak accident which ended his life.
Video footage of Steve Irwin's last moments shows the Crocodile Man pulling out the stingray barb which had pierced his heart, according to Irwin's producer John Stainton.
Mr Stainton described the video as the worst thing he had ever seen.
"I have seen the footage and it's shocking," Mr Stainton told reporters in Cairns. "It's a very hard thing to watch because you're watching somebody die and it's terrible."
"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. That was it. The cameraman had to shut down."
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Steve Irwin's death: the facts
Steve Irwin was filming a documentary, Ocean's Deadliest, on the Great Barrier Reef east of Port Douglas when struck and killed by a stingray's barbed tail on Monday morning.
The man known worldwide as the Crocodile Hunter had been swimming in shallow water at Batt Reef, near the Low Isles, with a stingray estimated to be 2.5m from wingtip to wingtip.
The moment of the attack was captured on video.
"The footage shows him swimming in the water, the ray stopped and turned and that was it," boat-owner Peter West was reported as saying.
"There was no blood in the water, it was not that obvious ... something happened with this animal that made it rear and he was at the wrong position at the wrong time and if it hit him anywhere else we would not be talking about a fatality."
Others who have seen the video describe it as shocking, and say Irwin pulled the barb from his own heart before collapsing.
After the attack, his film crew bundled Irwin into an inflatable dinghy where they reported the 44-year-old as barely conscious but still breathing.
However, Irwin had died by the time the support team had got him on board his vessel, Croc One. Attempts by a doctor and paramedic to revive him on a nearby island failed and his body was flown to Cairns on Monday night.
Mr Irwin's death was only the third known stingray death in Australian waters. Both previous deaths were also caused by the stingray barb piercing the heart of the victims.
Shark and stingray expert Victoria Brims said the normally passive creatures only strike in defence, attacking with a bayonet-like barb when they feel threatened.
Sydney - In death as in life, iconic TV naturalist Steve Irwin captivated millions worldwide and clogged the Internet as fans from Guam to Glasgow reacted with disbelief to news "The Crocodile Hunter" was dead.
Some Web sites groaned to a halt within hours of the first reports on Monday that Irwin had been killed by a stingray's barb through his chest in a freak diving accident off Australia's northeast coast.
Web measurement company Hitwise said Irwin's death was the biggest news event read by Australians on the Internet since two Australian miners were trapped by a mine collapse in southern Tasmania state in late April.
Irwin's death leading major news websites such as CNN
"We noticed that the website www.crocodilehunter.com increased in popularity quite substantially. It became the number one entertainment personality website in Australia yesterday and in the United States it also became the third most popular," Hitwise Asia-Pacific marketing director James Borg told Reuters.
Australian news websites struggled to keep up with demand.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's site (www.abc.com.au) had to temporarily shut down, posting a notice on Monday that it was experiencing higher than normal traffic.
It resumed soon after in a low-bandwidth format to cope with hundreds of thousands of hits.
Newspaper websites also wobbled but kept up with demand.
A spokesperson for The Sydney Morning Herald's site, www.smh.com.au, said it had experienced a "huge" 40 percent spike in page impressions compared with the previous week's average weekday number of about 500 000.
There was also a 70 percent jump in visitors to its pages, the spokesperson said.
That pattern was mirrored around the world, with Irwin's death leading major news websites such as CNN and US and British newspaper websites, as well as swamping their most viewed and most emailed categories.
Web logs and Internet feedback pages were also awash with postings from shocked readers from around the world, many of them from Americans charmed by Irwin's quirky style and his typically Australian catchphrase of "crikey".
Irwin first found fame in the United States before his "Crocodile Hunter" documentaries on US-based television company Discovery Communications' Animal Planet attracted a global audience of 200 million - 10 times Australia's population.
"Crikey, I miss him so much," Tina Treece from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, posted on a CNN feedback page. The site had contributions from readers in Guam, Romania, Thailand, France, Scotland, India, New Zealand, Canada, Brunei, Britain, Malaysia, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Many faced the problem of explaining to their children how one of their favourite TV characters had died.
"Why did it have to be Steve Irwin?" 11-year-old Daniel told Australian Associated Press.
Some Web sites groaned to a halt within hours of the first reports on Monday that Irwin had been killed by a stingray's barb through his chest in a freak diving accident off Australia's northeast coast.
Web measurement company Hitwise said Irwin's death was the biggest news event read by Australians on the Internet since two Australian miners were trapped by a mine collapse in southern Tasmania state in late April.
Irwin's death leading major news websites such as CNN
"We noticed that the website www.crocodilehunter.com increased in popularity quite substantially. It became the number one entertainment personality website in Australia yesterday and in the United States it also became the third most popular," Hitwise Asia-Pacific marketing director James Borg told Reuters.
Australian news websites struggled to keep up with demand.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's site (www.abc.com.au) had to temporarily shut down, posting a notice on Monday that it was experiencing higher than normal traffic.
It resumed soon after in a low-bandwidth format to cope with hundreds of thousands of hits.
Newspaper websites also wobbled but kept up with demand.
A spokesperson for The Sydney Morning Herald's site, www.smh.com.au, said it had experienced a "huge" 40 percent spike in page impressions compared with the previous week's average weekday number of about 500 000.
There was also a 70 percent jump in visitors to its pages, the spokesperson said.
That pattern was mirrored around the world, with Irwin's death leading major news websites such as CNN and US and British newspaper websites, as well as swamping their most viewed and most emailed categories.
Web logs and Internet feedback pages were also awash with postings from shocked readers from around the world, many of them from Americans charmed by Irwin's quirky style and his typically Australian catchphrase of "crikey".
Irwin first found fame in the United States before his "Crocodile Hunter" documentaries on US-based television company Discovery Communications' Animal Planet attracted a global audience of 200 million - 10 times Australia's population.
"Crikey, I miss him so much," Tina Treece from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, posted on a CNN feedback page. The site had contributions from readers in Guam, Romania, Thailand, France, Scotland, India, New Zealand, Canada, Brunei, Britain, Malaysia, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Many faced the problem of explaining to their children how one of their favourite TV characters had died.
"Why did it have to be Steve Irwin?" 11-year-old Daniel told Australian Associated Press.
yeah someone asked me if they were gona show it cuz he was filming underwater, but really it wud be disrespectful if they didnt show it, im sure his family wudnt wana see it, but the sad thing is that it will somehow leak onto the internet, ok the paris hilton and pamela anderson sex vids were ok, but this isnt.
