Crocodile Hunter dies

The point wasn't just that he was swimming near a stingray, but at the same time it is most certainly not a non sequitur.

If he had been stabbed while leisurely swimming and minding his own business, that's one thing. But this is a guy who made a life (and a living) out of, basically, challenging deadly creatures in their own environments. He thrived on the notoriety he gained from his exploits and, in the end, was killed by one of these deadly creatures while carelessly trying to expand on that notoriety.

 

On the homepage, towards the bottom (or maybe the middle) on the left side there's a link for "Interactive Toons". Click on that, then you'll see all three I mentioned and about 12-15 others.
All the interactive ones should provide prompts for when to move on to the next level (if they don't, once things start to repeat you'll know its time)

 

Man, I feel terrible for his wife and kids. He was just becoming popular when I started colleged in 97. He had a good run.

 

JJ,
You are 1,000 times more likely to die on the interstate than be killed by a sting ray. And I haven't seen anyone attributing his death to any carelessness, as you suggest. He died. It's tragic. But the suggestion that the manner in which he died is some sort of a disservice to his kids is indeed ridiculous.

Rasputin,
what does his over amount of brushes with dangerous animals have to do with his death? You said yourself that you don't dare suggest he shouldn't have been swimming near a stingray. Isn't that taking both sides of an argument?

FarmerJerome,
We started college the same year.

 

That makes no sense. He had time to pull the barb out of his chest but he died almost instaneously?

Picking nits, I know, but the whole story is contradictory.

 

Perhaps a natural reaction or something? Or did the pulling out hasten his demise?

Who knows. Either way, it was not good.

 

Pullingthe barb out is a natural reaction that probably hastened his demise. They are venemous (though the venom usually doesn't kill you), so his first reaction was probably to get the venemous thing out. Once he removed it, it opened up the hole in the perecardium and heart which led to an almost instantaneous bleed out.

One of the first rules of puncture wounds is you don't remove the thing that punctured you until you're in the hospital (with at least two IVs in you and scans to show you where the thing is loged) just for that purpose. Unfortunately, the natural reaction is to get whatever it is out.

And I wouldn't necessarily call sting rays "deadly creatures" unless you're going to classify all wild animals as deadly creatures. They're venemous but fatalities are much rarer than auto accidents, as mentioned above.

If it was too dangerous, there wouldn't be a minor tourism industry based around the practice.
http://www.43things.com/things/view/84250
http://www.hawaiivacationsite.com/hawrayenseal.html
http://www.cayman.org/divesite/stingray.htm

 

You're not picking nits. His people have been contradicting themselves from the start on this one.

 

Last week, the local paper reported on a kid who had something fly up from a lawn mower and puncture his abdomen. I guess it was poking against the skin on his back, which was pushed out an inch or two. I recall reading that the doctor credited his recovery to the decision to leave the piercing thing in him. As mentioned, it actually clogs the hole and cuts down on the bleeding.

 

Just reading that was painful, to think that's how he died. Say what you want, dude loved his job. Not everyone can truly say that with conviction, but he did what he wanted to. Sad story.

 

Which I would. If it can kill you, it's deadly, whether it's an animal or a poison or a bacteria or the smell of your brother-in-law's farts.

A definition of "too dangerous" is subjective, but it's safe to say most practices that would be considered "dangerous" by the majority of people in society still have industries, tourism included, that cater to them. Hell, there's an entire subspecies of the tourist industry dedicated to helping people get to Thailand in order to have sex with children.

Here's a bit from the story on Time's website, which is what I saw when I made the point that he was careless. Sorry, I should have referenced it earlier.

Veteran marine wildlife documentary maker Ben Cropp, who has spent hundreds of hours filming on Batt Reef, says Irwin had come too close to a bull ray. Citing a colleague who saw footage of the attack, Cropp says Irwin had accidently (sic) boxed the animal in, causing it to attack. "It stopped and twisted and threw up its tail with the spike, and it caught him in the chest," says Cropp. "It's a defensive thing. It's like being stabbed with a dirty dagger."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1531446,00.html

You're right in that the odds of dying in a car accident are much greater. But the stats are skewed, because you can avoid swimming with stingrays far easier than you can avoid being in a vehicle and on the highway. My guess is that the number of people killed by stingrays would go up exponentially if you had as many people in the water with them as you have on any given interstate in the nation on any given day.

The point I've been trying to make is that this is simply not a case of purely accidental death. Although he obviously didn't intend to die, the nature of his death has everything to do with what he did for a living -- a job he declined to give up despite the dangers it presented, despite the fact that he had two young children who needed a father more than he needed his notoriety and far more than Bindi needed her own TV show.

And now Bindi will have to go through life with the knowledge that her father needlessly died while gathering stingray footage for her show. What a great feeling that'll be. And you think I'm suggesting his death "is some sort of a disservice to his kids"? No, it's not a disservice. It's a goddamned disgrace.

 

Kritter nailed it.

Reminds me, though quite indirectly, of that episode of Homicide where the guy gets pushed into the subway car, and lives until they untwist his lower extremities.