The mystery surrounding the footage which captured Steve Irwin’s last moments is still ongoing.
September marked the 17th year since his death, and a lot of people immediately think about the camera recording when remembering the day he died.
The Aussie zookeeper was a staple for many who enjoyed animal-themed TV shows, such as The Crocodile Hunter, New Breed Vets and Croc Files.
But it would be the filming of one of these types of shows which would be his last ever moment alive.
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It was during the filming of Oceans Deadliest at the Great Barrier Reef with Philippe Cousteau Jr. on 4 September 2006 that he was tragically killed.
Irwin, 44, had been snorkelling in Batt Reef near Port Douglas around North Queensland when he was pierced in the chest by a stingray, which stabbed Irwin ‘100 times’, according to cameraman Justin Lyons.
Unfortunately, after initially believing that he had been punctured in the lung, he was also caught in the heart.
On that day, the crew desperately tried to save him on land before paramedics came to perform CPR, but he was pronounced dead shortly after.
The moment of his attack was captured on film, as Irwin's one rule for his camera crew was to always keep filming.
However, all copies were destroyed, except for one.
Nobody knows where it is, but his wife, Terri, believes that it’s sitting in a dusty police vault which was left after the 2007 investigation concluded.
Despite the tape having never been released, many on social media claimed to have seen it, but it was fake.
Terri called out the 'complete fabrication' during a 2018 interview with You magazine where she shared: “After Steve died, 100 million viewers watched a video of his death that was released on YouTube.
“That film was a complete fabrication exploiting people's sadness. I have never watched the real footage. Why would I?
"I know how my husband died, and I was relieved that the children weren't on the boat as they usually would be; it would have been horrendous if they had witnessed it.”
A very sad detail surrounding that fateful day was that Irwin was not meant to be at sea as filming had been cancelled due to bad weather.
But he decided to film a segment for his daughter Bindi Irwin's TV show instead, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
As per The Daily Mail, John Stainton, the director, explained that the zookeeper 'expressed interest in encountering some typically harmless stingrays.’
While stingrays tend to be docile, as soon as he swam over it, it started 'stabbing wildly with its tail'.
In 2014, Lyons told Studio 10: "It probably thought that Steve’s shadow was a tiger shark, which feeds on them very regularly. I panned with the camera as the stingray swam away, I didn’t even know it had caused any damage.
"It wasn’t until I panned the camera back, that Steve was standing in a huge pool of blood, that I realized something had gone wrong."
Stainton promised to keep the tapes of Irwin's death private, telling Larry King in 2006: “When that is finally released [after being investigated], it will never see the light of day. Ever. Ever.
“I actually saw it, but I don't want to see it again. I would never want that tape shown.”
Topics: Animals, TV and Film, Steve Irwin, Australia, Celebrity
Britt Jones