Sorry I was wrong when I said that Steve Irwin dived on top of the stingray. On TV they said he was actually swimming with stingrays in 2 metre deep water. He was swimming a couple of feet on top of a stingray when it flicked its tail up and speared him through the heart. Apparently he then died immediately after before they pulled him from the water. Apparently people were trying to revive him for about 2 hours before deciding he had died
He was in North Queensland to film a documentary "Ocean's Deadliest" for American TV but when bad weather postponed filming on the reef he decided to get footage of stingrays at Batt Reef for a new TV series to be presented by his little daughter Bindi premiering January around the world

Legendary underwater filmmaker Ben Cropp, who has filmed several documentaries with stingrays, said he believed the animal must have been spooked.

"He was swimming along with a ray and there was a camera man in front doing the filming and he was probably getting a little bit too close to the ray," Mr Cropp said from his Port Douglas home.

"The ray would have felt cornered and suddenly baulked and twisted around and flicked his tail up in defence.

"Steve just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Mr Cropp said stingrays attacked only when they felt threatened. Irwin's death was a freak occurrence. "Steve could have done it 1000 times and it never happened," he said.

"I'm sure he felt confident with what he was doing but I think he just got too close and when the thing spooks, it doesn't spook and run, it stops and stabs."