AUSTRALIA: Fatally injured "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin pulled a stingray's serrated barb from his chest before he lost consciousness and died, his manager said yesterday as fans worldwide mourned the exuberant naturalist.
Hundreds of fans placed flowers outside his Australia Zoo in Queensland state and wrote messages on khaki shirts, part of his trademark uniform, as Irwin's body was flown home after Monday's freak diving accident off Australia's northeast coast.
Officials offered Irwin's grieving family a state funeral, while news of his death on the Great Barrier Reef clogged internet news sites and ground some websites to a halt.
Police have been handed footage taken as Irwin (44) filmed what was to be his last documentary. It shows him swimming above a stingray when it lashed out and speared him in the heart with its barbed tail, manager John Stainton told reporters.
"He pulled it out and the next minute he's gone," he said. "The cameraman had to shut down. It's a very hard thing to watch because you're actually witnessing somebody die . . . It's terrible."
Police said it appeared Irwin was just watching the stingray.
"There is no evidence that Mr Irwin was intimidating or threatening the stingray," Queensland police spokesman Mike Keating told reporters.
Marine experts say stingrays can deliver horrific, agonising injuries from the toxin-laden barbs, which can be up to 20cm (eight inches) long and cause injuries like a knife or bayonet.
"It's not the going in that causes the damage, it's the coming out, where those deep serrations kind of pull on the flesh, and you end up with a very jagged tear which is quite a pronounced injury," said Dr Bryan Fry, deputy director of the Australian Venom Research Unit.
Australian prime minister John Howard interrupted parliament yesterday to pay tribute. "He was a genuine, one-off, remarkable Australian individual and I am distressed at his death. We mourn his loss, we're devastated by the tragic circumstances in which he has been taken from us and we send our love and prayers to his grieving family," he said.
Film-star Russell Crowe praised Irwin as the "ultimate wildlife warrior". Irwin's zoo kept its gates open despite his death.
"He would have been kicking our butts if we decided to close the zoo. It's a great chance for people to go in and see his crocodiles, see what he loved," said zoo worker Louise Martin.
Environmental documentary maker Ben Cropp said Irwin was swimming alongside a bull stingray probably weighing around 100kg (220lbs).
Stingrays are normally placid and only attack in self-defence. But Irwin's cameraman was filming in front and it probably became frightened and lashed out. Mr Stainton said the cameraman only became aware of the attack when he noticed Irwin bleeding.
Millions had seen Irwin flirt with death many times as he stalked and played with crocodiles, sharks, snakes and spiders.
Mr Stainton said he was struggling to come to terms with the fact that a stingray killed his friend. "He just seemed to have a charmed life," he said.
Known for his catchphrase "Crikey" during close encounters with animals, Irwin made almost 50 documentaries which appeared on the cable TV channel Animal Planet.
US-based television company Discovery Communications, which produces Animal Planet, said it would set up a conservation fund in honour of Irwin. It said the footage of Irwin's fatal dive might never be broadcast.
Irwin's documentaries attracted a global audience of some 200 million people, many of them in the United States, and fans from Guam to Glasgow jammed websites and news blogs. Many asked how they were to explain the death to their children.
"Why did it have to be Steve Irwin?" asked 11-year-old Daniel. (Additional reporting by Michael Perry)