Could Irwin have survived?

"Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, impaled through the heart by a sting ray's barb, pulled it from his chest before losing consciousness and dying yesterday.

If he hadn't, he might have lived.

"It's not the going in that causes the damage, it's the coming out where those deep serrations kind of pull on the flesh, and you end up with a jagged tear which is quite a pronounced injury," commented Dr. Bryan Fry of the Australian Venom Research Unit.

HT: Drudge