Steve Irwin's Dead?!?

Video of croc hunter's attack called 'shocking,' 'terrible'

'It's a very hard thing to watch because you're watching somebody die'

People who have seen footage of the stingray death of Australian crocodile hunter Steve Irwin say the images are shocking and terrible.

Irwin, 44, was killed almost instantly yesterday when stabbed in the heart by the creature's poisonous 20 centimeter barb.

Irwin's producer and life-long friend John Stainton handed the video to police after the animal wrangler was stung by a stingray while filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Queensland state.

He told Sydney's 2GB radio it was the worst thing he'd ever seen.


"I have seen the footage and it's shocking," Stainton said. "It's a very hard thing to watch because you're watching somebody die and it's terrible."

He said Irwin had not provoked the stingray, and was merely snorkeling above it when he was attacked.

"He came over the top of a stingray and the stingray barb went up and into his chest and into his heart," Stainton told the Australian newspaper. "It's likely that he possibly died instantly when the barb hit him, and I hope he felt no pain."

Boatowner Peter West, who viewed the video afterward, told the paper: "The footage shows him swimming in the water, the ray stopped and turned and that was it. 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."