November 2011    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 26, No. 11   What's this?

The Death of Steve Irwin, Redux

from the November, 2011 issue of Undercurrent  

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It has been more than five years since the famed "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin died while snorkeling at Batt Reef in Queensland, Australia, during a shoot for a series called Ocean's Deadliest. He swam too close to a stingray that thrust its barb into his chest, piercing his heart and killing him shortly after. (We wrote about the incident, and the backlash, in our October 2006 issue, which you can read at www.undercurrent.org )

The South Pacific Underwater Medical Society (SPUMS) collects diving fatalities in Australian waters every year in its Diving and Environmental Medicine journal, although it typically publishes them a few years later, as researchers need to compile the reports from witnesses, police and coroners to create their case studies and analyze the results and factors leading to the deaths. Below is what SPUMS wrote - -and concluded - - about Irwin's death....