[BlogEntry] Wait….the same stingrays that I swam with?

Does it bother anybody else that Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray? Kerry and I (and friends) swam with those things down in the Cayman Islands. My first thought was, "Surely we're not talking about the same thing. He must have been swimming with the exotic poisonous cousins of the ones we swam with."

Nope. That's the big thing everybody's talking about how, what would have provoked the "usually peaceful" stingray. Since they have it on video (ewww) the current theory is that the stingray became trapped between Irwin and the cameraman, and it was a defensive move on the animal's part.

The scariest part is that he did not die because the thing is poison and it scratched him, or it bit him and he bled to death or something….he died because its barb hit him in the chest and punctured his heart. Holy $%^&*(. When we went swimming with the things the worst they told us to expect was a pretty nasty hicky if you touched their food and then touched yourself. (And yes, clear instructions were given to under no circumstances touch the food and then your crotch just to see what would happen.)