Oh crikey..... :cry:

[Scootertrash]

this is so sad....what a likable guy he was....


Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin dead

By staff writers
September 04, 2006 02:14pm
Article from: Font size: + -
Send this article: Print Email
THE Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, is dead.

He was killed in a freak accident in Cairns, police sources said.

It is understood he was killed by a stingray barb that went through his chest.

He was swimming off the Low Isles at Port Douglas filming an underwater documentary when the tragedy occured.

Ambulance officers confirmed they attended a reef fatality this morning at Batt Reef off Port Douglas.

Irwin's body is being flown to Cairns.

It is believed Mr Irwin's American-born wife Terri is trekking on Cradle Mountain in Tasmania and is yet to be told of her husband's death.

Mr Irwin - known worldwide as the Crocodile Hunter - is famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchcry "Crikey!".

The father of two's Crocodile Hunter program was first broadcast in 1992 and has been shown around the world on cable network Discovery.

He has also starred in movies and has developed the Australia Zoo wildlife park, north of Brisbane, which was started by his parents Bob and Lyn Irwin.



A Tourism Queensland spokeswoman today said the death was shocking and paid tribute to Irwin's "enormous contribution" to his adopted state.

Louise Yates said it was impossible to quantify how much Mr Irwin had meant to the Queensland tourism industry.

"I don't think we could even estimate how much he brought us through his personality and his profile and his enthusiasm about Queensland," she said.

"It would be difficult to estimate how much he was worth. And it would be difficult to underestimate."

She said Mr Irwin had been a larger-than-life ambassador.

"It's not just what he brought but what he took with him when he travelled, his passion."

Australia Zoo, on southeast Queensland's Sunshine Coast, employs more than 500 people and attracts thousands of visitors every day.

But Ms Yates said it would be "unfair and unjust" to put a dollar value on Irwin's worth to the state, because of how much he had given.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20349888-2,00.html

[stilltrucking]

They say it was not the poison that killed him but the trauma
The pain from the poison is excruciating.

It is sad, he was likable. But he died with his boots/ flippers on .
Doing what he loved.

But it reminds me of this for some reason.

Snake Handlers Hang On in Appalachian Churches
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

April 7, 2003
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. —Mark 16:17-18

For serpent-handling churches, these verses hold no symbolism—they are the literal words of the Lord that have inspired worshiping believers to handle poisonous snakes for a hundred years.

[mtmynd]

Yeah, young Steve was a likeable fellow. Sad for his wife and kids, but he did go doin' what he loved. What more can a person ask for?

[stilltrucking]

I must have herard this joke about or almost fifty years ago.

I heard it from a airforce flight surgeon I call homeboy. He has been a friend of mine for sixty five years. He is in his seventies now, He learned to ride motorcycles a few years ago, he goes to the track and runs the senior circuits, the speed o meter on his bike quits at a hundred and fifty. When was the last time you saw a motorcycle parked outside a psychiatrists office? He loves speed, he misses those jets. Is that a death wish?

well you know the joke, I want to go on an upstroke...

Which reminds me how Nelson Rockefeller died. His poor secretetary was so traumatized they had to give her a couple hundred million bucks to calm her nerves.

Me I am ready to die right now right here , doing what I love, mindless typing. Smoking my Camel Lights.

A good death is dying at home, it was for Alamo Rose. If not for homeboy and diamond lil she would have died in that creepy hospital

I know so little of death, I have seen so few. But I have studied on the ones I have experienced first hand.

Now jitterbug is the closest person to a christian I have ever know, he is a friend of sixty five years, he believes in eternal life, he believes he will never die. His faith so much stronger than mine.

I believe that I am going to burn in hell for all eternity, because there is no redemption. So I hope that the dead know nothing. I believe the dead are dead. I believe that there will be one child left to carry on. Even if it is not mine.

what hell were talking about??????????????????????????/////
I was kind of stunned to see you deleted another post of mine. Good for you. THank you. I get so tired of deleting my own posts

[stilltrucking]

I did not realize the barb entered his heart. Probably instantaneous.

"May you be in heaven half an hour... before the devil knows you're dead."
It sounds like a good death, but he was so young. But he lived those 44 years full throttle.

A good death, in or on the ocean, that works for me. T

[gypsyjoker]

We used to pull one up in the nets now and then, They looked wicked to me. I never had the urge to pet one of those rays.

But what a ride it must have been, between the devil and the deep blue sea.

From the Washington post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01109.html

There was a bit of gleeful, heedless joy in the way Irwin went about his adventures, as if he were a kid playing in a mud puddle. He actually seemed to like all the icky stuff. In one episode, he walked through a bat cave, taking a bat "shower" in the process. In another segment, he combat-crawled up to a pack of vultures as they fed on the remains of a hippo.

"One of my wildest boyhood dreams was getting close enough so that I was sharing the carcass with vultures," he said, by way of narration.

It was the kind of thing that invited the viewer to invoke Irwin's signature line: "Crikey!"

Irwin was also a relentless hype artist, forever pointing out the sheer folly, the craziness -- the "dain-jah!" -- of whatever he was doing. An unusual number of snakes seemed to rate his breathless description as "the world's most venomous," and this or that creature would be "one of the biggest I've ever seen," or "the most aggressive animal I've ever come across!"

But the man could hold viewers spellbound, beguiling them just as he charmed his snakes.
"I don't want to seem arrogant or bigheaded, but I have a real instinct with animals," he told me when I interviewed him several years ago. "I've grown up with them. . . . It's like I have an uncanny supernatural force rattling around my body. I tell you what, mate, it's magnetism."

Herpetologists scoffed at that, pointing out that many professionals handle dangerous animals without incident. (In fact, Irwin got bitten fairly regularly by non-venomous snakes and had one or two unpleasant encounters with crocodiles.) The pros were generally none too pleased with Irwin's antics, saying they simultaneously inflated the dangers of wild animals (most animals run away when confronted by humans, for example) while making wildlife handling seem like casual fun.

All of which may be true, but it missed the real appeal of "Crocodile Hunter." The concept -- guy meets nature's meanest -- would not have worked, or worked as well, had Marlin Perkins or Jack Hannah been the host. Only a personality as vivid and exuberant as Irwin's could have made the adventurer-among-the-beasts bit such compelling television.

American viewers, who saw the series on the Animal Planet channel, "got" Irwin immediately, I think. We've been trained to identify his type by a generation of Qantas airlines and Foster's beer commercials and "Crocodile Dundee" movies. Irwin was another of those unpretentious, outdoorsy, can-do Aussie blokes who seem so much more "American" to Americans than the British ever will.

In person (or at least on the telephone, which is how I spoke with him and his wife, Terri), Irwin seemed a lot like he did on TV -- amped-up, emphatic, sincere in his passion for preserving and protecting wildlife. He also sounded a bit humbled by his then-dawning TV career. Trained as a diesel mechanic (he never received a degree in any animal study), Irwin credited his love of the animal kingdom to his father, a plumber turned zookeeper. He said he never expected to be appearing on TV screens around the world.

One other thing: He really did say "crikey!" a lot.

[firsty]

i watched news coverage of this for about 5 minutes yesterday before i got sick.

my friend died almost 3 years ago in a similar diving accident. he was filming an episode of "deep sea detectives" for which he was a co-host. they still dont know how he died.

at his memorial, the consensus was, he died doing what he loved. his memorial fund goes to research on health implications of any kind of diving. there is so much we dont know about what happens to the body underwater.

what i got sick of in the news coverage yesterday was the speculation about - he must have been aggressive towards the ray, he must have been careless - they kept showing him feeding a croc with his son in his arms. bullshit. all. people criticize what they dont understand. irwin grew up in that environment.

my oldest son will probably remember irwin's death as the first cultural death of his lifetime, as i remember elvis dying, or john lennon dying, etc.

it's terribly sad. i hope that his children continue his tradition of loving animals and preserving their environment.

peace to him and his family.