Endless Thread - Bonus: Australian Scientist Offers First-Hand Account Of Steve Irwin's Tragic Death

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

Australian scientist Jamie Seymour was friends with the famous "Crocodile Hunter," Steve Irwin. He was even there when Irwin was fatally stung by a stingray in 2006. Jamie sat down with Ben to reflect on that experience and Irwin's legacy.

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Produced by the ILAP at WBUR, Boston. Hey, Unless Thread listeners, we have something we wanted to share with you in between episodes. In our last story, Doom Jelly, we talked to Australian toxinologist Jamie Seymour about box jellyfish and the equal parts mysterious and terrible Irokanji syndrome. If you haven't listened to that yet, get on it. But there was a part of our conversation with Jamie that didn't quite fit into that episode. It was about his relationship with the famous conservationist and TV personality Steve Irwin, aka the crocodile hunter.

Irwin died suddenly in 2006. He was filming a documentary for the Discovery Channel off the coast of Australia when a stingray attacked him, piercing his heart with its tail barb. He was 44 years old. Now, stingrays are generally known as passive, harmless animals, so some were quick to assume that Irwin must have acted irresponsibly or threatened the ray in some way. Jamie Seymour disputes that narrative,

and he would know because he was there when Steve Irwin died. Jamie told Ben more about the incident. Take a listen. Yeah, that's not one of the highlights of my life, but yeah, I was in charge on the back desk deck when we lost Steve, unfortunately. anniversary of that death was about a week ago, sort of one day after my son's birthday. So yeah, yeah, something that comes back to me every single year. What would you say to, you know, people who criticized him at the time for the way that he

passed away? Look, the short answer to that is they weren't there and they didn't know what happened. And there were a number of experts that came out going, well, he should have done that, he should have done that. They weren't there. And, you know, one of the things we talked about was, where we were, we were out there chasing tiger sharks in this one particular spot, and the sharks are there because they're feeding on stingrays. And one of the things that Steve and I had been talking about was going, okay, if we're working with stingrays, what do we need to be worried about? And I said, look, it's not the venom per se from these guys.

It's the spine on the back. Yes, it's coated with venom cells, but it's the structural damage that that spine will do. So you need to be careful about what's going on. And Steve at that stage said, well, maybe I should dive in one of these chain mail mesh suits. And I went, look, I wouldn't. And my reasons for that, because if you end up with an injury or if you end up with a hole in your buoyancy inflator, we can't get you off the bottom because you're negatively buoyant and you're going to sink like a stone. And we went, yeah, okay, that makes sense. I said, look, things you need to be careful of, you know,

don't corral the animal up into a corner and just be gentle with them. And yep, no problems at all. one of the things that we didn't discuss and you can only tell people so much things and so much time is one of the things you've got to be careful of is these animals are there and they're hiding from sharks so basically when a big shark comes over the top of them

all they see is this big you know image over the top and bang and away they go the issues that seem to occur with Steve is he's coming from the back end the sun over his shoulder and what you've then got is the shadow has hit the ray it's thought it's a big shark, bang, and it's all over. So it's not, you know, there was so many people that came out and said,

oh, Steve was upsetting the ray, it was pushing in a corner. No, he wasn't. You weren't there. You didn't see it. It was just a really bad accident. If you'd have been, you know, five feet one side or coming from another direction or the sun had to be somewhere else, wouldn't have happened. But it was one of the things that I just hadn't discussed with him.

And, you know, looking back now, it was like, whoops, that was probably something we should have talked about. about, but we talked about everything else, like, you know, don't harass the animals, don't put them into a corner. And by and large, these things are referred to as pussycats of the ocean. You know, they're not an issue. But just under some circumstances, it goes wrong. Did he have an influence on your work? Yeah, Steve has an, or had an influence on everybody. It's interesting. When I first met him, you know, obviously many, many years ago, they asked me to

work with him and I went, look, why do I want to work with Steve Irwin? You know, you're watching. him on the TV and it's like, really, he just does everything that a good quality scientist doesn't really want to be seen doing. But I remember saying this to Steve one day. He was going, you know, Steve goes, Jamie, you're not really in tune with me here. And I just went, Steve, look, I've got to be honest with you. I've seen you on television stuff. And look, you just come across as an idiot. And he went, oh. I said, well, look, you do realize that there's a drinking game that when you watch the crocodile hunter, every time you do something, quote, stupid,

you've got to skull a beer. And he went, really? And I said, yeah, and you cannot get through a 50-minute episode without being shattered and drunk at the end of it. And he thought that was quite funny. And he said, do you actually watch my shows? And I went, Steve, I don't.

And he said, you've never watched him. I said, look, I watched him for a couple of minutes. And he said, why did you watch him? I said, well, to be honest, to see you do something stupid. And then it's like, yeah, right, told you he was going to get bitten or stung or whatever. And he said, gotcha.

And I went, what? He said, what do you remember me for apart from that? And I think everybody remembers Steve Irwin for the catchphrase. Crocs rule. Save the crocs. And I went, yeah, and he said, I've got you. While I've got you there watching me doing those things, I can subliminally put this into your brain and it's going to stick. He's absolutely right. He was prepared to sell himself for the sake of the animals. And that was the thing that really sticks in my mind is he fought for every animal on the planet didn't care whether he came out looking like an idiot at the back end of it, as long as he'd help the animals on the planet. And that's something we should remember him for.

Jamie Seymour, thank you very much for talking with us. My pleasure. Jamie Seymour is an associate professor at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia. Ben and I will be back with a new episode on Friday. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science. neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics.

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