Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin

[alcina]

Yes, a stingray barb can puncture a wetsuit.

 

[cerich]

Yes, a stingray barb can puncture a wetsuit.

it can puncture ainch of pine wood.

 

[alcina]

it can puncture ainch of pine wood.

Although I'm sure some can, I wouldn't imagine all can

 

[audission]

it can puncture ainch of pine wood.

:icon10:

My two-inch pine suit is on order.

 

[cerich]

Although I'm sure some can, I wouldn't imagine all can

Rays that are mid sized up sure can, I spent 5 years as an instructor in Cayman so have a passing familiarity with stingrays.

My pine statement comes from being out with Caymanian fisherman who catch stingrays sometimes by mistake. They don't want to get stung so will use a piece of wood or a paddle pushing down on the rays back, the ray will strike the wood and in-bed in the wood, at that point they remove the hook from the rays mouth. That is the nicer(to the stingray anyhow) fisherman, most just cut off the tail with a hatchet, remove the hook and throw them back in the water.

I also dated a ER doc while I lived there, she treated a tourist that stepped on one, the barb actually penetrated the guys shin bone. Morphine did very little to ease the pain for the poor guy.... He spent qite a while in the hospital fighting the infection afetr they flew him to the US from what I heard.

 

[gangrel441]

A man struck dead by lighting walking across a parking lot…his number was up. A man who was in habit of standing in the middle of a field during a lightning storm holding a long metal rod...pushed his luck once too often.

His number was up. He wasn't standing in the middle of a field during a lightning storm holding a long metal rod. By all accounts, he was swimming in a non-confrontational manner with a creature that we all know to be docile and of little threat, though potentially dangerous if provoked. All who have viewed the tape, including the authorities, have said that he did not appear to be threatening the ray.

Let me tell you a little story from my other area of interest. It is of a man by the name of Mike Hailwood. He was a GP Motorcycle racer, then got his shot to race in Formula 1. Then one day, he was driving to the market with his daughter when they were struck by a truck and he was killed. So you tell me....was he tempting fate? Did it finally bite him back? Or did he simply become a very unusual statistic in what most of us would consider a low risk activity?

I have been on many dives, as deep as 135 ft, and with many creatures that my friends consider dangerous, such as barracuda, shark, moray eel, now stingray I guess...some of those friend would say I am taking crazy risks everytime I have more than 5 feet of water over my head. Some would say I am nuts to be in the water with sharks. So a few years ago, when a drunk driver put my brother-in-law and me into a limestone wall and narrowly missed sending us to the bottom of a 400 ft deep quarry as we were driving home from a weekend at the race track, you tell me...was that the odds evening out for all those times I had engaged in such dangerous and reckless activities as scuba diving and observing the toothed menace at close quarters? Did I get what I had coming all that time? Or was it simply a case of sometimes crap happens?

 

[Web Monkey]

a very popular dive site in So. Fla., the wreck of The Sea Emperor. I guess that couldn't have been playful, or welcoming either; it must have been a display of dominance and revenge by the stingray.

More likely it was out looking for food or getting away from the noisy dive boat, you happened to drop in front of it, and it ignored you.

They're fish. They eat, poop, reproduce, swim and protect themselves when necessary. AFAIK, they don't "play" or "welcome".

Terry

 

[BKP]

Yes.

Just like I would deny someone that wanted his footage shown, that just jumped off the hundreath floor, or the bankrobber going down in a hail of bullets hoping for his 15 minutes of fame. I hope the footage is destoyed, you can put me in that box, if you like.

Unfortunately, if it *was* Irwin's formerly professed wish that something like this be aired, and it's withheld (for whatever reason), then what actually happened, and the events leading up to it, will always be suspect...

 

[jepuskar]

Gangy.....you almost became part of the Thorton Quarry? LOL

 

[gangrel441]

Gangy.....you almost became part of the Thorton Quarry? LOL

Yep. 4 years ago on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. Got the hardware in my left forearm to prove it, too.

I don't have any irrational fears from the incident, but I always cringe just a little bit when I drive over Thornton now. The other side of me, however, can't wait to dive that bad boy whenever they decide to let 'er flood...