14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Irwin is still probably one of the most popular TV personalities when it comes to nature shows, despite the fact that he passed in 2006, after a tragic accident while filming, in which he was stabbed in the heart by a stingray.
Ever since then, the death of the man that everyone thought was made of steel has been shrouded in rumor and hearsay, with rumors that he tore out the venomous spike from his chest. Today, after eight years of silence, the cameraman who filmed the entire process and Steve's good friend and right hand, has opened up about what really happened on that faithful day.
Justin Lyons came on the Australian morning show Studio 10 and talked about his adventures with Steve and also gave a step-by-step account into his final moments. Justin was the only other person in the water with the animal wrangler and was the first to jump to his aid.
As he tells it, Steve Irvin was actually stabbed several times by the massive stingray they had been filming for a while in the chest-high waters. The usually calm ray, inexplicably and suddenly flicked its giant tail as Steve swam up to it, and Justin believes that it mistook his shape in the water with a tiger shark, one of their natural predators.
Justin kept filming and following the stingray with his camera, not realizing that his friend had been stabbed several times, until he zoomed back on him and found him in a pool of blood. At this point, Justin is keen to correct previous rumors that stated Irwin removed the barb from his chest by himself.
“It didn't come out. Steve didn't pull it out. It's a jagged, sharp barb and it went through his chest like a hot knife through butter. He thought it had punctured his lung. He had about a two-inch-wide injury over his heart with blood and fluid coming out of it,” Lyons recalls.
Initially, everyone thought the bar went to Steve's lung as he cried in pain and had difficulty breathing. It turned out that the injury was much more serious than they all thought and the alligator handler quickly faded, despite the best efforts of his team.
His last words, spoken with a serene look on his face looking up from the bottom of the boat he was in were “I'm dying” as his team urged him to remain strong and think of his children.
He concludes with saying that he doesn't know what happened to the footage he shot that day, but added that he hopes it will remain unseen. Steve's wife, Terri, has previously told Access Hollywood that all footage from the attack was destroyed.
The legacy of Australian animal show host Steve Irwin remains strong to this day and, despite several years passing, his shows are still getting aired and people are still amazed at the fearlessness he displayed around animals.
In the end, Justin Lyons also addresses the sad irony in Irwin's demise after an attack by an usually gentle creature when everyone thought he would fall under the attack of an alligator or a snake “It was probably always going to be something weird with Steve. I mean, a crocodile or a shark, he was so good with animals, nothing was going to get him.”
“We thought he was going to live forever, but it would always be a crazy silly accident, and as it turns out that's exactly what it was,” Justin concludes.