stingray article - “…And if frightened, roughly handled, or captured, they react quickly by using their tail to place the sting in close contact with the object of their discomfort. Stingrays cannot raise or lower their stings voluntarily. The wound they inflict comes from the arching forward flick of their muscular tail. Envenomation occurs when the tip of the spine penetrates the ray’s integumentary sheath and lacerates the skin of the victim simultaneously. …”
I have no desire to watch the video, and I don’t like to watch Hollywood-fake deaths on television or movies.
I won’t watch it. And Quartz I’m interested to know what you think it would tell you. Myself, I wouldn’t need to watch it to have it occur to me that swimming with stingrays is an inadvisable thing to do.
Because of the debate over weather or not he was harassing the ray, I want to see portions of the tape, particularly his, “interactions” with the ray. I don’t need to actually see him get stung or try to deal with the barb.
I have no knowledge about that, so I shan’t comment on his wife’s wishes. But didn’t he have kids? I can’t imagine that a recording of their father’s death being circulated being good for them.
Exactly. That’s the question that needs to be answewred. I have my own preconcieved beliefs on this, and I’d like to be proven wrong.
It’s unlikely that anyone will see the video anyway, since there have been several reports that it will be destroyed.
I watch everything.
It must have been a lucky shot for the stingray. I’m guessing the stinger entered between his ribs and missed any bone or cartilage that would have stopped it from reaching the heart. I wonder what killed him first: the poison or the heart trauma…
Apparently he lived long enough to remove the stinger from his own chest. I’m not sure that was a smart move – you’re not supposed to remove a weapon from a stab wound, right? Maybe it’s a different case for a giant poisonous stinger…
Anyway, to answer the OP’s original question, I don’t think I could stomach such a video. I wouldn’t mind reading a detailed description of the event to satisfy my morbid curiousity, but watching him die would be heartbreaking.
It would show me the behaviour that got him killed. Ergo, it’s something to not do.
Sometimes you don’t have a choice.
Thanks. Interesting article. I can imagine stepping on one of these things without knowing it. Also confused them with Manta Rays which I’ve seen people ride. Now I know.
My last foray into the sea does not make me feel any safer after hearing what a stingray can do. While snorkeling in Key West I was stung by a jellyfish, bit by a crap, and chased by a barracuda.
Ugh. See how hazardous the ocean is? As if crap wasn’t nasty enough, it has teeth there.
Must’a been one of those Blind Mullets. They can be damned vicious sometimes.
Never. As I would never watch any video of executions in Iraq- or anywhere.
I could say I won’t, but I know myself too well. I am sure it will disturb me, but I can’t help myself with these things.
Yes. And not out of any morbid facination with death, but because I want to see with my own eyes if he did anything to provoke the ray.
And I would be bawling my eyes out the entire time. 
I have no interest in actually seeing him die but I have a scientific curiousity to see the actions of the stingray and Irwin leading up to his injury. I would probably watch it up to the point of him pulling the barb out of his chest. Frankly, I think that is all they should release.
I am also of the opinion, that he might have survived had he not removed the barb, but I imagine he did not realize that it could have pierced vital tissue and only knew it was intensely painful. I would not want to see what happened after he removed the barb. I don’t think it is recommended that you pull out the stinger whereever it stings you because the barbs can cause further damage coming back out. I remember removing one from a dog at the vet clinic, we had to anethetize the dog and basically cut it out to keep from ripping out hunks of tissue or having the barbs break off inside.
Stingrays are dangerous but usually not fatally, so this was indeed a “freak accident” and I really hate to see people develop an unnecessary fear of rays. This is counter-productive to what Irwin tried to teach people. It is possible to swim with rays and come out unscathed, people do it all the time without even knowing it. In all my many years in Florida I can’t tell you how many times I stepped on something in the water that wiggled out from under my foot and swam off. I also managed to bump a lot of creatures when I did the “stingray shuffle” that swam off. They were most likely rays and they never stung me. Although, you can get stung that way and it is intensely painful from all the first hand accounts I’ve heard (my sister, for one), deaths are extremely rare.
I am sure that Irwin would want that sort of message passed along as opposed to them being evil killing creatures.
Stupid keyboard. It should know what I meant to type.
I’m not even bother to read these threads. The guy was a thrillseeker with a fantastically dangerous occupation. He died. Go figure. Same for that racecar driver, Dale Earhardt or whatever.
Oh my God, there’s even a name for it :eek: