[FEL-L] AU: Croc Hunter killed-- more info

[Chufff at aol.com]

Here is more info on how Steve lost his life to the ray:

 Stingray deaths rare and agonizing
 POSTED: 6:57 a.m. EDT, September 4, 2006


 SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- Normally placid stingrays can deliver 
horrific, agonizing injuries, even though fatal attacks are almost unheard of, marine 
experts said on Monday after the death of Australia's "Crocodile Hunter" 
Steve Irwin.
Irwin, the bubbly, khaki-clad naturalist whose documentaries were watched by 
hundreds of millions around the world, died after he was struck in the chest 
by a stingray barb while he was diving off Australia's northeast coast on 
Monday.
Irwin's manager John Stainton said Irwin was swimming over the stingray 
during filming for a documentary when he was struck in the chest, the barb most 
likely piercing his heart.
Dr. Bryan Fry, deputy director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the 
University of Melbourne, said stingray venom was "extraordinarily painful."
"If he was conscious he would have been in agony," Fry told Reuters.
Fry said stingray venom was a defensive weapon similar to that in stonefish 
but was not lethal. Serrated barbs on the stingray's tail would have delivered 
the fatal injury, he said.
"It's not the going in, it's the coming out," Fry said.
"They have these deep serrations which tear and render the flesh as it comes 
out," he said.
The barbs on stingray's tails can measure up to 20 centimeters.
Clinical toxinologist Dr. Geoff Isbister said little is known about stingray 
venom but agreed the physical trauma associated with the wound would have 
killed Irwin.
"What happened to Steve Irwin is like being stabbed in the heart," Isbister 
said.
Injuries caused by stingrays are relatively common but fatalities are 
extremely rare, with experts saying there are only one or two known cases in recorded 
Australian history.
An Aboriginal boy died several years ago, while the previous record death was 
in Melbourne in 1945.
"The majority of stingray injuries in Australia result from people stepping 
on them in shallow water and getting a stingray barb in the ankle," Isbister 
said.
Marine ecologist Sean Connell said stingrays, which feed on small animals on 
the sea floor, are related to sharks and use their long, barbed tails to 
protect themselves from predators, such as sharks and killer whales.
"I have never heard of an unprovoked attack from a stingray," Connell said. 
"Such attacks usually only happen when the ray is under severe stress," he 
said.
Copyright 2006 Reuters

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/04/australia.irwin.stingray.reut/inde
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