"I'm dying": Crocodile Hunter Irwin's last words revealed

The cameraman with Steve Irwin at the time of his death has described how a stingray’s jagged barb pierced the Crocodile Hunter’s chest “like hot butter”.

Justin Lyons also revealed that as he urged Irwin to focus on his kids in a bid to help him, the conservationist uttered his last words: “I’m dying”.

It is the first time Lyons has given his account of Irwin’s death since the incident in Queensland in 2006.

“It’s a jagged barb and it went through his chest like hot butter,” said Lyons on Australian television.

“He had a two-inch-wide injury over his heart with blood and fluid coming out of it and we had to get him back to the boat as fast as we can,” he added.

The stingray attacked as the pair attempted to film their final shot which was intended to show it swimming away from Irwin, according to Lyons.

This contradicts reports at the time that Irwin had provoked the giant ray.

“I had the camera on, I thought this is going to be a great shot, and all of a sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly; hundreds of strikes in a few seconds,” said Lyons.

The cameraman also said that he hopes footage of the incident is never released.

“Steve had this rule that no matter who was injured, we had to keep filming... a second cameraman filmed the CPR,” he said.

“I don’t know what’s happened to it [the footage] and I hope it would never see the light of day,” he added.