Steve Irwin’s deadly decision and sorrowful moment he knew he was dying

Steve Irwin had travelled to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to shoot scenes for Ocean’s Deadliest – but when bad weather called the shoot off, he decided to collect footage for his daughter instead.

The kooky Aussie conservationist and his camerman Justin Lyons took a small inflatable boat out on Batt Reef off the coast of Port Douglas, where they spotted a sight he thought would be perfect for his little girl Bindi’s series, Bindi the Jungle Girl.

On the bottom of the ocean lay a 2.4m wide bull stingray, weighing in at around 220lbs.

Together, Steve, 44, and Justin climbed into the chest deep water, expecting the usually placid creature to swim away as Steve approached, giving them the perfect shot.

But instead the animal stood firm. And when ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve passed over the top, it raised its razor-sharp tail, stabbing him ‘hundreds of strikes in a few seconds’.

As it swam away, Justin had no idea Steve had been hurt until he saw the blood.

“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 and Steve was standing in a huge pool of blood that I realised something had gone wrong,” he told Australia’s Network Ten in 2014.

It was widely reported at the time of Steve’s death 14 years ago today that he pulled the barb out of his own chest – a move said to have cost him his life.

But according to Justin, that was wrong. Yes, Steve was in extreme pain from the venom and barb, which can inflict the same kind of wounds as a knife or bayonet. But there was no barb left behind and at the point, they thought Steve had just punctured a lung.

But back on the boat, both saw blood and fluid leaking from a two-inch wide gash across his heart and Steve knew he was in trouble.

“He was having trouble breathing. Even if we’d been able to get him into an emergency ward at that moment we probably wouldn’t have been able to save him, because the damage to his heart was massive,” Justin said.

“As we’re motoring back I’m screaming at one of the other crew in the boat to put their hand over the wound and we’re saying to him things like, ‘Think of your kids, Steve, hang on, hang on, hang on.'”

But despite facing death, the iconic star refused to panic.

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