Steve Irwin, better known as the “Crocodile Hunter,” tragically died in 2006. In an interview, his underwater cameraman revealed what his last words were.
Justin Lyons, who worked with Irwin for over a decade, was with him in Port Douglas on the north coast of Queensland, Australia, while they were filming Ocean’s Deadliest when the naturalist was struck by the sting of a stingray to the heart.
In 2022, he explained how it all happened, revealing that they decided to go out in search of sharks, even though no filming was planned for the day. “Steve wasn’t the type to sit and wait, so I said, ‘Let’s take the boat out and see what we can find.'”
While they were in the water, the duo came across a large stingray, but they tend to be docile, so they wanted to take a closer look. “We knew their behavior. We weren’t afraid of them. We thought it would be fun. We were swimming around [the stingray], it was gliding and settling on the bottom,” Lyons explained.
In 2014, he appeared on an Australian morning show and recalled Irwin’s last words. “I had the camera and thought it would make a great [shot]. But suddenly, the stingray reared up and started [attacking] Steve with its tail,” he told Studio 10.
“There were hundreds of stings in just a few seconds. He just looked calmly at me and said, ‘I’m dying.’ And that was the last thing he said,” Lyons recalled.
He said he performed CPR on Irwin for “over an hour” until the naturalist was declared dead 10 seconds after paramedics examined him. Irwin was 44 years old and left behind his wife, Terri, and their two children, Bindi and Robert, who were 6 and 2 years old, respectively.
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