Yup, it's a genuine mystery how he managed to get himself killed....

My absolute favorite clip of Steve Irwin:
He's out in the Australian Outback and he starts showing the camera a non-venomous snake when he gets bit. He carries on for a bit, then suddenly looks into the camera and yells "Croiky!" and bolts over to his truck. He digs out a book from the glove box, thumbs through it rapidly, and with a sigh of relief says "Yep, non-venomous. For a second there, I thought I was holding a (snake name) and we're about 200 miles from the nearest hospital!"

I just avoid any snakes.

Any video of this online?

Hehe
"No one should ever attempt this, not at all!"

I did a quick search on YT, but didn't see it.

Please understand that this guy was our Honey Boo-Boo.

Poorly worded title.

The only time I ever saw him 'blink' was when he faced an aggressive cobra. It repeatedly attacked the camera, and was reared up about three feet off the ground. Irwin gamely tried to grab its tail a few times but the cobra snapped around pretty fast.
Irwin finally admitted defeat... "I think we'll let this one go..." and this freaky snake went off into the bush, its head still about three feet off the ground. WOULD NOT want to stumble across that in the bush...

Doesn't this belong in the *eia channel?

Invocations (eia) cannot be called by Zawash because Zawash is not privileged - sorry.

For some maybe. For others he was a genuinely nice guy with a passion for showing people the animal kingdom with a pure Australian character.

Still too soon.

I upvoted, I'm not hating on the joke.

Being on land and in control of the environment and approach is a calculated risk, where his expertise negates a lot of the danger. If you listen and watch his body language, Irwin is actually very very focused on not dying, as you'd imagine he would be. He was good at hiding that behind the entertainment.

He died because he was in water, with no mobility and no control of the environment, trying to interact with creatures who can move in an instant. To me it feels like TV got in the way here, a small lapse of judgement on a "peaceful" creature, it was really just unfortunate. Not to mention piercing his heart, even that was unlucky, a hit in the leg may have had him live.

yellowc's right, Erwin had a bad day with that stingray...He knew the animals he would mess with very well and met his untimely on fluke-day.