Steve Irwin's Cameraman Reveals What His Last Words Were Before His Tragic Death: "I'm Dying..."

When Steve Irwin was just 6 years old, he arrived late at school because he was rescuing a lizard crawling off the road on his way. A fervent lover of wildlife, Irwin dedicated four decades to wrestling with crocodiles and wrangling with a myriad of reptilian creatures. Dubbed the “Crocodile Hunter” after the name of his television show, Irwin fearlessly scuffled with venomous animals like crocodiles, alligators, lizards, cobras, snakes, and sea kraits. But on an ill-starred day on September 4, 2006, a tragic event unfolded as the legendary hunter lost his life after getting stung by a stingray. None of his crew members could have anticipated that the one who ferociously cuddled the most venomous reptiles would die at the hands of such a docile creature.

An underwater cameraman, Justin Lyons, who was the sole witness to Irwin's death, revealed his unfortunate last words in an interview with Australia’s Studio 10. According to Lyons' recollections, the event happened when he and Irwin were about eight days into filming a series called Ocean’s Deadliest for which they had dived into chest-deep waters near Queensland, Australia, where they came across a massive 8-foot-wide stingray.

WebMD explains that even though a stingray’s sting can trigger a life-threatening shock if it penetrates the human skin, these creatures are usually gentle and shy. Most times, they prefer to retreat rather than strike. They keep their attack mode on only for larger predators like carnivorous fish and sharks. And they don’t attack humans unless they feel being stepped on. At that moment, the impressive stingray swimming with Irwin must have mistaken his shadow as a predatory tiger shark, for, it started stabbing him vigorously. “It started stabbing wildly with its tail,” Lyons recalled, “hundreds of strikes within a few seconds.”

While Irwin was swimming with the stingray, Lyons was busy filming the scene on his camera, as their “one last shot.” The cameraman was excited to think that it was going to be a great shot. But when the creature suddenly attacked and swam away in the ocean, he was puzzled. At first, nothing seemed wrong. But as he noticed a plumy pool of red color wafting around where Irwin was, he became alarmed. It wasn’t just red color, it was a pool of blood. “I panned with the camera as the stingray swam away. I didn’t even know it had caused any damage,” he described to the outlet and added, “It wasn’t until I panned the camera back... Steve was standing in a huge pool of blood.”

The stingray’s barb had lodged itself inside Irwin's chest and was slowly poisoning him to death. At this moment, Lyons' first feeling was fear. He was scared that if they remained too long in the deep waters, Irwin's blood might soon attract sharks. The barb formed a two-inch wide gash on Irwin's chest, having punctured his lungs and heart. Lyons didn’t realize the extent of the damage until the rest of their crew pulled them up and slathered Irwin's body in their inflatable boat. Clearly, he didn’t have much time. “He was in extraordinary pain... The damage to his heart was massive,” Lyons recalled. Some crew members gave him CPR by putting pressure on his wounds while Lyons kept on assuring Irwin to just "hang on," and think of kids. 

But then, the famed conservationist looked up at him and calmly said, “I’m dying.” Those were his final words. When the paramedics arrived, they declared him dead. The footage of this incident was later handed over to Queensland Police for investigation, according to Joe.co.uk. In 2007, the authorities declared that they had destroyed all the copies of this tape except one which was handed over to Irwin's widow, Terri. Terri said she never watched the tape and neither let her kids, Robert and Bindi, watch it. She expressed that she’d prefer the film to remain concealed from the public, even though another copy of the tape is lying somewhere in an Australian police vault.