According to the Daily Mirror, Tommy Donovan, Irwin’s IMDb biographer, once said: “He tells his camera crew to always be filming. If he needs help he will ask for it. Even if he is eaten by a shark or croc, the main thing he wants is for it be filmed. If he died he would be sad if no one got it on tape.”

So it was that the fatal incident that played out near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on September 4, 2006, was recorded. The story goes that filming for Irwin’s show Ocean’s Deadliest had been postponed due to bad weather, and so the conservationist had decided to film a segment involving stingrays for his daughter Bindi’s show Bindi the Jungle Girl.

Remembering that fateful day, John Stainton, a director and close friend of Irwin’s, told how he, Steve, and camera Justin Lyons were bored at their hotel and so headed out on a small boat to Batt Reef.