“And all a sudden it (the stingray) propped on its front and started stabbing (Steve) with its tail.
“I had the camera and thought this was going to be a great shot,” Lyons said. Lyons said he and Irwin slipped out of the boat, briefly making a plan about how they would collect footage of the eight-foot-wide bull ray - a type of stingray that gets its name from its distinct head shape.Īfter several minutes of shooting, Lyons said they stood up and decided “one last shot.” The plan was for Irwin to swim behind the stingray so Lyons could get a shot of the large creature swimming away. Irwin’s long-time cameraman Justin Lyons said the crew had been out on an inflatable boat in the Batt Reef in Queensland, Australia when they spotted a “massive” stingray swimming through the chest-high water. Now the only man who witnessed Irwin death’s has spoken publicly about the incident for the first time in an interview with the Australian morning program Studio 10. Irwin was fatally injured by a violent stingray attack in 2006 while shooting a documentary entitled “Ocean’s Deadliest” on the Great Barrier Reef. Those were his only words - his last - before he died. He looked up at his cameraman, a gaping stingray barb wound in his chest, and said “I’m dying.” Steve Irwin, the legendary and seemingly invincible “Crocodile Hunter,” knew it was likely the end.
