Steve Irwin's Last Words: Interview With His Underwater Cameraman Part 1 | Studio 10

[Music] our next guest has an incredible and moving story and it's never been told before he was the sole witness to one of the most tragic events in recent memory it was the day that we lost an Australian icon it was the shock news that made world headlines we begin in Australia where local reports are saying their famed Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin has died Steve Irwin who braved the jaws of crocodiles killed by the freak flick of a stingrays tail that fateful day remains etched into the memories of many including Steve's most trusted companion and where would I be without me best mate me right-hand man Justin who was the only person underwater with Steve that day and eight years on he's ready to tell his story for the first time Justin welcome to the show thanks for having order safe Coll juries right-hand man so you clearly had a very special relationship we did yeah 15 years of traveling and working and being in dangerous situations and hotels and airplanes and airports yeah we were very close and Justin I think all of us remember where we were when we heard the news that Steve Irwin had died what is it that you remember of that day I remember really very clearly a bit of background we've been working on a documentary called ocean's deadliest so basically looking at the deadliest creatures in the ocean sharks and sea snakes and blue ringed octopus and box jellyfish and all the things that would normally make people cringe this is what Steve loved so he's very excited by it we're about eight days in we'd been filming with crocodiles I think and sea snakes we'd been milking sea snakes and we were looking for tiger sharks on this particular day and so we'd had a bit of bad weather Steve was like a caged tiger when he couldn't do something particularly on a boat and so he said let's go and do something so we jumped in the inflatable and off we went to look for something to do and and so then what did you do you were standing the to view in quite shallow water weren't you when will mean we don't have been motoring for a few minutes and we found a massive stingray fantastic we're actually looking for something to shoot for another project and which one with stingrays many times before usually at all this one was extraordinary large it was 8 foot wide massive bull drain so it was very impressive so we're only in chest deep water we slipped over the side of the the inflatable we stood up we chatted about what we were going to do we always made a bit of a plan with filming underwater and we just started shooting we've been shooting it for a few minutes stingrays are normally very calm if they don't want you to be around them they'll swim away they're very fast swimmers a couple of minutes we've been filming we stood up we said what shots do we want to get we always try to put the animal between Steve and I underwater so the animal was in the foreground and we stood up and said one last shot you swim up from behind the animal and and I'll try and get a shot of it swimming away and so that's what they did Steve swimming up and you're getting the shot and what happened well I had the camera on I thought this is gonna be a great shots gonna be in the docker for sure fantastic and all of a sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly with its tail hundreds of strikes in a few seconds there they're incredibly powerful animals and they've been on the planet for sixty million years so they survive because they are their survivors it probably thought that Steve's shadow was a tiger shark which feeds on them very regularly and so it started to attack him I panned what the camera is the stingray swim away I didn't even know it had caused any damage it wasn't until I panned the camera back that Steve was standing in a huge pool of blood that I realized something had gone wrong what did you think what did you do next well it's it's crazy what goes through your head but the first thing I thought of was we've got to get out of the water because we're attracting sharks did you have to help him it was it was seconds but it felt like forever because time really did slow down for me there and again contrary to what I read in the papers and everything I heard at the time which was just incorrect the stingray barb was a blade about a foot extending out of the middle part of its tail so it's not at the tip of the tail it's it's about in the middle it's a bit like a fingernail and the other half is embedded in the tail of the Stingray it didn't come out Steve didn't pull it out it's a jagged sharp barb and I went through his chest like a hot knife through butter he thought it had punctured his lung and he stood up out of the water and screamed its punctured me lung within a few seconds the inflatable that had been motoring about 30 meters away was there so we threw him into the boat and assessed the situation for about five seconds he had a two-foot about a two inch wide injury over his heart with blood and fluid coming out of it and we thought we've got to get him back to the the boat as fast as we can well he talked aside was he talking to you he was in extraordinary pain that they've got a venom on their barb and so it was I'm sure it was excruciating ly painful he had an extraordinary threshold for pain so I knew that when he was when he was in pain that it must have been painful I don't he obviously didn't know that it punctured his heart but he knew that had punctured his lung he was having trouble breathing but I mean even if we'd been able to get him into an emergency ward at that moment we probably wouldn't even upper save him because the damage to his heart was massive so as we're motoring back I'm screaming at one of the other crew in the boat to put their hand over the wound and I'm we're saying doing things like think of your kids Steve hang on hang on hang on he just sort of calmly looked up at me and said I'm dying and that was a lot so you say what what a thing to hear from one of your closest mates what was going through your mind when he was looking up at you saying that I'm not sure to be honest I don't think I realized how serious it was I didn't know that it pierced his heart I thought maybe it's just pierced his lung we've got a good chance of saving him he probably lapsed into unconsciousness even though his eyes were open somewhere in those 30 seconds getting him back to croc one the the mothership and we literally put him on the duck board and I started CPR on him straight way that there was no hope was there there's always hope I mean what we hoped for a miracle so we you know I literally did CPR on him for over an hour before we got him to low Al's where the helicopter arrived and the medics came but then they pronounced him dead within ten seconds of looking at him did he say anything else to you no that was it no his final words and I mean you would have been in the past in a lot of sort of dangerous situations with Steve did it surprise you that it was something like a stingray that this is what was gonna happen it was shocking I mean it was probably always going to be something weird with Steve I mean a crocodile or a shark when he was so good with animals nothing was gonna get him you know we always thought it would be something you know we thought he was gonna live forever but it would always be a crazy silly accident and as it turns out that's exactly what it was just am I gonna talk more with you after the break thank you so much already for sharing some of this remarkable experience we will be back soon and we're gonna find out how Justin got back on his feet after losing his very good friend Steve Irwin [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Studio 10

Views: 4,257,479

Rating: 4.7575655 out of 5

Keywords: Reality, Australian show, new show, studio 10, funny, fresh, subscribe, channel ten Hamish McLennan; Ita Buttrose; Network Director of Morning Television, Adam Boland, Steve Irwin (TV Personality)

Id: FeydzMjP4Oo

Length: 7min 57sec (477 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 09 2014