Featured Image Credit: Justin Sullivan/Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
Topics: Animals, Steve Irwin, Videos, Australia
Chelsea Connor
Topics: Animals, Steve Irwin, Videos, Australia
The cameraman who filmed Steve Irwin's death has relived the harrowing details of the Crocodile Hunter's fatal encounter with a stingray.
The world collectively came together in mourning when the heartbreaking news of Steve Irwin's death was announced back in 2006, after the Aussie icon was killed after being by attacked by a stingray during the filming of a wildlife expedition.
The environmentalist was filming a documentary at the Batt Reef, near Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia, along with Justin Lyons who documented his interactions with wildlife.
In an interview recalling Irwin's death, Lyons revealed that Irwin's last moments were filmed due to his dedication and pact with all crew to 'keep filming regardless of the situation'.
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Lyons, who joined Irwin on many of his expeditions and worked with him for over 10 years, shared the horrific details of Irwin's fatal stingray attack.
He shared that he and Irwin were looking for tiger sharks.
Lyons told Daily Mail Australia: "Steve wasn't one to sit around and wait, so I said let's jump in the boat and see what we can find.
"We never wasted a minute. We were always shooting and because we had some spin-off shows, we used every frame of every shot."
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While submerged in the water, the pair came across a large stingray. They weren't particularly concerned, having filmed with stingrays many times, saying: "We knew the behaviour. We weren't scared of them.
"We thought this was going to be a joy. We were swimming around [the stingray], he'd glide off and settle on the bottom."
Lyons recalled: "[Irwin] swam up right over his tail. Instead of swimming off, [the bull ray] propped himself on the front of its wings and pushed his rear end up and started madly stabbing with his tail towards Steve.
"The water boiled with bubbles, thrashing and whatnot. The entire time I was locked on Steve. I didn't know what was going on, I could see it was trying to stab Steve and he was pushing him away but it was over in about 10-15 seconds.
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"The stingray swam off so I panned to film Steve swimming away.
"It wasn't until I panned back and the water around him was already filling with blood that I realised he had passed."
Lyons went on to share Steve's heartbreaking final moments.
He said: "Brian is covering this massive wound in Steve's chest. There's blood and fluid oozing from this massive hole. Steve is tensing up writhing in pain. Brian keeps saying: 'Think of your kids, you'll be right.'
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"Steve looks directly at me and says: 'I'm dying.' I told him: 'No you're not, you'll be right just hang in there.'"
They arrived back at shore about 45 minutes later, but by that point Steve appeared to have already gone and there was nothing they could do for him.
Irwin is still missed to this day.