Cupid Shuffle? No! Stingray Shuffle!

Most people know about how Steve Irwin died: a sting to the heart from a stingray. It was, of course, a live stingray. What else could it be? Others wonder, though, about whether a dead stingray could kill you. It still has the stinger, right? It's kind of like falling into a pit with foam blocks and one rock, and falling from a great height. You have the potential to hit that rock, don't you? There's actually been a piece of research done by howstuffworks.com on this.

Let's look at the start, why stingrays sting you in the first place. There are three different reasons why a stingray will put out its stinger in the first place: if it is stepped on, roughly handled, or overall threatened. Because of the possibility of stepping on a stingray, in waters with them you are supposed to do "the stingray shuffle." Few people actually do it, but it's a good precautionary measure. You shuffle your feet along the bottom, where the sand is, instead of walking or hopping. The stingray will feel the sand move, or your feet touch its edge or get near, and will move accordingly.

When a stingray feels in danger, it will whip its tail to its head. There's a stinger that will come out, which breaks through a thin layer of skin to point up, basically perpendicular, from the tail. It sits in the stingray venom so it's constantly "revenomed". The venom is a mucus-like coating on the stinger, which also has little barbs that will stick in your skin and, if you try to pull it out, will pull out a lot of other stuff because of that. Stingray venom is pretty potent stuff. It messes with the heart's electrical function, and can dilate or restrict blood vessels. The venom doesn't usually make it to the heart, though; it will stay by the wound site. On the downside, you're pretty much screwed if you get stung near the heart. Luckily, other than its tail, the stingray is pretty much featureless; no fierce teeth, claws, nothing of that sort. At least we don't have to worry about that...
So can we die from a dead stingray? It's unlikely because the tail whipping up is the main problem. Unfortunately, you can die from a dead stingray (it sounds like a pretty shameful way to go; death by dead stingray.). If the stingray died in the defensive stance, the tail by the head and the stinger sticking out, it can still sting someone. A case where someone died by dead stingray was unable to be found, but it's still a possibility.

On the bright side, it's unlikely you'll die from a dead stingray. On the downside, you overly-worried people out there will now have one more thing to worry about. This doesn't break a lot of new ground, but it's still a good thing to be aware of. There are potential cases of death by dead stingray in the future, but hopefully not. The world isn't exactly going to change from this unless a world leader dies by dead stingray. When I found this, I had a strong compulsion to tell my old friend Andrew, who was a big Steve Irwin fan and as far as I know still hates stingrays. I wanted to tell him that he at least would probably not die by dead stingray (which I'm sure occupies his thoughts daily).

Clark, Josh. "Is a Dead Stingray's Sting Still Lethal?" HowStuffWorks. Discovery, 2 Mar. 2009.
Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

N.d. Photograph. Elasmodiver.com. Elasmodiver. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.