{"id":1031945,"date":"2026-08-29T23:57:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1031945\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T23:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:57:28","slug":"steve-irwins-best-mate-reflects-on-20-years-since-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1031945\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Irwin’s best mate reflects on 20 years since death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to the audio version of this article below. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to comprehend it\u2019s been 20 years since the world lost the great Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It was Monday September 4, 2006, and Australia\u2019s favourite knockabout bloke was gone \u2013 fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray\u2019s barb while filming an underwater documentary off Port Douglas in Far North Queensland.<\/p>\n

Heartbreakingly, fellow Queenslander John Stainton<\/a> \u2013 Steve\u2019s long-time close friend, manager and producer \u2013 was by his side when his mate took his last breath. Two decades on, the memories haunt him.<\/p>\n

\"SteveIt\u2019s been 20 years since the iconic Steve Irwin\u2019s tragic death. (Credit: Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to talk about without choking up and weeping like a baby \u2013 it\u2019s still surreal all these years on. It was awful, horrific, horrible and just so incredibly sad, and even today I struggle to accept that he really is gone,\u201d John, 73, reveals exclusively to Woman\u2019s Day in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of Steve Irwin\u2019s tragic passing.<\/p>\n

THAT FATEFUL DAY<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the sheer suddenness of it all that was so difficult to accept \u2013 Steve was supposed to outlive the lot of us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A TV industry legend, John produced and directed more than 350 television programs with Steve in the Crocodile Hunter franchise, the pair living their best lives travelling the globe in search of the next big wildlife adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve had a million ideas, but he\u2019d come up with a winner for a new series \u2013 Ocean\u2019s Deadliest \u2013 featuring underwater creatures you don\u2019t want to mess with. We were filming that day at Batt Reef off Port Douglas,\u201d John pauses, taking a deep breath before recalling what happened next.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was with our small crew on the main support boat \u2013 Steve went out with our experienced underwater cameraman Justin [Lyons]. As it happened, Steve spotted a massive stingray flat out on the ocean floor \u2013 he indicated it would be a great shot to swim over the top of it to show how big it was.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must\u2019ve thought he was a shark because it suddenly threw its tail up a few times and struck Steve in the chest.<\/p>\n

\"TerriSteve\u2019s best mate John Stainton comforts Terri and the children at Steve\u2019s funeral in 2006. (Credit: Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin dropped everything to grab Steve, including the camera that kept rolling, and called another boat in the area and radioed us to say Steve had been hit by a stingray \u2013 nothing could prepare us for what happened next.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Courier Mail\u2019s report at the time, as they raced back for help, Justin reportedly told Steve to think of his children, Bindi<\/a>, then eight, and Robert<\/a>, two, while fighting for his life. Steve looked up and said his final words, \u201cI\u2019m dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can never unsee what came next \u2013 my invincible mate, my protector, the bloke who constantly reassured me over the years he\u2019d take the bullet for me, was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, I\u2019ve not watched that underwater footage \u2013 I recall seeing part of it at the police station in the hours after, but I was in such a state of shock, I decided I don\u2019t want that to be my lasting memory of Steve \u2013 I owed him more than that,\u201d he says proudly of his friend.<\/p>\n

EARLY DAYS & MATESHIP<\/p>\n

John chuckles remembering the first time he ever met his Wildlife Warrior mate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing a TV commercial here in Brisbane circa 1988 for Pizza Hut \u2013 it was a studio set around a picnic rug. For some reason I had to find a real frilly lizard to run across the blanket, and someone suggested calling the Beerwah Reptile Park [now Australia Zoo] and I got Bob Irwin Snr<\/a> on the blower,\u201d explains John.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext minute, Steve was on the line \u2013 \u2018No worries, Johnny, I can bring it down to you.\u2019 He looked after that lizard like it was his own baby!<\/p>\n

\u201cA year or two later Power\u2019s Brewery wanted me to make a TV ad about their new canned beer with a couple of fellas fishing on a creek bed, and it required a live croc. I went to see Steve, \u2018Not a problem mate and we\u2019ll use my hand, not some poor bugger.\u2019 After he saw the storyboard, he took me to meet the croc, and we ended up shooting it at one of the zoo\u2019s ponds that he\u2019d re-created. Safe to say the ad was a raging success!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Steve Steve was proud of his childhood home in Beerwah where his family\u2019s legacy, Australia Zoo, which his mother Lyn (left) and father Bob started, remains a tourist attraction. <\/p>\n

That was Steve, according to John \u2013 he never lost his cheeky boyish charm. A proud adopted Queenslander, having moved from Victoria as a young boy, Steve was even more proud of his childhood home in Beerwah where his family\u2019s legacy, Australia Zoo, remains a tourist attraction.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing was a problem because he was the real deal \u2013 the complete package. Over the years, we\u2019ve been dubbed \u2018The Odd Couple\u2019 but we just clicked \u2013 and in the end what I realised is we shared a deep passion for all creatures great and small.\u201d<\/p>\n

A STAR IS BORN<\/p>\n

It was early days, but John knew a star when he saw one. \u201cIn around 1992 I was managing my good friend Jacki MacDonald <\/a>and I suggested to her to get this guy Steve onto one of her segments on Ten\u2019s original series of Healthy, Wealthy & Wise. No surprise, they were terrific together!\u201d<\/p>\n

But it was a chance look at some of Steve\u2019s hundreds of hours of croc wrangling he\u2019d videoed up at his property in remote Far North Queensland that finally convinced John that Steve was special.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe filmed all this raw footage off this clunky old Panasonic camera he had. He would send the tapes down to show his dad Bob the work he was doing up there with the crocs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had boxes of these tapes given to me, and I\u2019m ashamed to say they sat unwatched on top of my TV for months,\u201d he says. \u201cOne night I got home around midnight and put on the first tape. Three hours later, at 3am, I pressed rewind and watched the same tape again until 6am. At 6.30 I called my mate, the late Mike Lattin, at [Ten] and said, \u2018You have to see this bloke Steve Irwin \u2013 he\u2019s a freak!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he wasn\u2019t putting secondhand stuff up on his network and somehow found the money for me to make a pilot \u2013 and the rest, as they say, is history!<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the very first Crocodile Hunter pilot in 1992, and Ten ran it up against ratings juggernaut Fast Forward on a Thursday night \u2013 and I\u2019m pretty sure it won the slot!\u201d he says with a smile.<\/p>\n

John recalls it was around the same time Steve announced he\u2019d got married and had been to Oregon in the US to tie the knot with new wife Terri<\/a>. He soon learned she was an American who Steve had met the year before in 1991 after she visited the Beerwah Reptile Park, where he was giving a wildlife demonstration.<\/p>\n

\"SteveSteve was a natural in front of the camera and soon the entire world wanted a piece of the Crocodile Hunter. (Credit: Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all happened very quickly \u2013 six weeks I recall, and on return from the US he asked if Terri could come into the mix for filming, which of course she did, and from there on playing a major role in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve was a chip off the old block \u2013 dad Bob Snr, his hero, and mum Lyn were the epicentre of his universe, John says. \u201cHis dad was his ultimate role model who taught him so much \u2013 he only ever wanted to be just like him. When his mother Lyn was tragically killed in a single motor vehicle accident in 2000, he called me \u2013 he was inconsolable and he never really recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n

While John is open to discuss anything around his mate Steve, he is adamant he won\u2019t comment on the longstanding family rift between Terri and Bob Snr over alleged conflicting ideas around Australia Zoo.<\/p>\n

FAMILY RIFT<\/p>\n

According to reports, their supposed fallout led to Bob\u2019s sudden departure in 2008 from the original reptile and fauna park and family home he\u2019d lovingly built with Lyn back in the 1970s for Steve and his two sisters Mandy and Joy, and where Steve spent his childhood caring for native animals and wrestling crocodiles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now believed Steve\u2019s grown children, Bindi, 28, and Robert, 22, are all but estranged from their grandfather Bob, 87.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been very fond of Bob Snr, who by the way is the \u2018full bob\u2019. I speak to him regularly and he is as driven about conservation and our planet as ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

John admits all families have dynamics and hopes for everyone\u2019s sake they find \u201cpeace\u201d, adding that while he hasn\u2019t kept in touch with Terri over the years, it was only because there wasn\u2019t really a need to.<\/p>\n

\"SteveSteve worshipped his father Bob Irwin Snr. (Credit: Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cI do know Steve would be so proud of his kids. To see Robert\u2019s star on the rise is remarkable \u2013 his saving grace is he\u2019s become his own person and clearly loves doing his own thing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing that happened to Robert, who is so much like his dad, is that he very smartly didn\u2019t try to be a next-generation crocodile hunter. That would\u2019ve been disastrous \u2013 there\u2019s only one Steve Irwin. And Bindi appears to have found her place out of the limelight, and by all reports is loving motherhood. Like her dad, family is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

For John, it\u2019s now about honouring his special mate who not only saved his life twice, but who in his final days sent one last message highlighting their special bond.<\/p>\n

\"TheJohn says he believes Steve would be so proud of his family, who continue to carry on his legacy of wildlife conservation at Australia Zoo. (Credit: Instagram)<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the days before his death we were filming at his research property in remote North Queensland, and he delivered a piece to camera that was so powerful, an eerie \u201cfinale\u201d style tribute, thanking me for all I\u2019d done for him, and paid homage to his crew, which I thought at the time was so unusual,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurns out he was delivering his final farewell to us\u2026 days later he was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve was fearless, loyal, brave and courageous \u2013 and so curious. I\u2019m going to remember him when I sit down and finally write my book as the man who not just changed my life, but millions of others. We did pretty good for a bloke from Brisbane and a kid from Beerwah \u2013 what a ride mate, what an amazing ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

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