The crew rushed back to shore, with cameras still rolling due to the panic. Even if we’d been able to get him into an emergency ward at that moment we probably wouldn’t have been able to save him because the damage to his heart was massive,” Justin said. However, while sitting in his hotel room with cameraman Justin Lyons and director John Stainton, Irwin found himself bored and took out a small boat on Batt Reef, off the coast of Port Douglas, in search of footage that could be used for his daughter’s show instead – Bindi the Jungle Girl. The 44-year-old was not supposed to be out at sea that day as filming for his programme Ocean’s Deadliest was called off due to terrible weather conditions. If he died he would be sad if no one got it on tape.” Even if he is eaten by a shark or croc, the main thing he wants is that it be filmed. His IMDb biographer Tommy Donovan previously said: “He tells his camera crew to always be filming, if he needs help he will ask for it. This meant that his final moments, on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, were also captured film – but there is mystery as to where the footage lies to this day. The famous Australian zookeeper and television personality had one rule while handling crocodiles, snakes and sharks, and that was for the cameras to keep on rolling. The Crocodile Hunter ‘s death, 4 September 2006, saw an outpouring of grief from fans across the globe after being stabbed in the heart by a stingray while filming footage. He was 44 when he died, with the tragedy shocking his fans around the world.This month marks the 16th anniversary of Steve Irwin’s tragic death.

While Stainton’s fears were for his own life, it was Irwin who was killed when the barb of a stingray pierced his chest while diving off his boat ‘Croc One’ on Batt Reef near Port Douglas. Stainton had even tried to have Ocean’s Deadliest canned before the crew travelled to Australia’s northeast coast, and when he was unsuccessful, underwent a series of medical tests and prepared a will. Speaking to ’s new daily news podcast, I’ve Got News For Yo u, producer John Stainton - who was behind The Crocodile Hunter TV show and spent 15 years travelling the world with Irwin - said he “felt uncomfortable” about the underwater documentary project from the beginning due to a deep sense of foreboding that he was going to die. A close friend of Steve Irwin’s who was there the day he died has shared the eerie lead-up to the trip that took the Croc Hunter’s life, revealing he “tried to stop” the production during which Irwin was stung and killed by a stingray from going ahead.

Steve irwin footage of death