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Crocodile Hunter Killed today


Torneyboy

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Children affected by 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin's death

 

 

 

Sydney - Australian Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's death will resonate for children the same way the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy did for adults, parents and child psychologists said Tuesday.

 

Irwin, 44, killed by a stingray barb to the heart in a freak accident Tuesday, was an enormously popular figure with children thanks to his daring escapades and boundless enthusiasm for nature's most dangerous killers.

 

Australian child psychologist Beverley Thirkell said many of her young patients were devastated by the loss of a celebrity they had idolised for years and regarded as a friend.

 

"His status with children was enormous," she told Channel Nine television. "I guess if I were to put the qualities of a perfect teacher in one person, it would be Steve Irwin."

 

Erna Walraven, senior curator at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, said Irwin's death was a shock to young children.

 

"I think a lot of children will be very sad to hear that, it's not something that children are often touched by," she said. "Particularly since he was so alive on television, it's so hard for them to imagine that he's no longer there to tell them stories."

 

A Sydney mother named Maureen said her two sons, aged nine and 11, had been crying and repeatedly asking why Irwin was dead.

 

"This is like JFK for kids, or Princess Diana -- a young, popular person suddenly snatched away," she told Australian Associated Press.

 

In a reaction evoking the aftermath of Princess Diana's death, hundreds of Irwin fans, many of them weeping, left flowers, cards and other mementos at his Australia Zoo animal park.

 

Agence France Presse

 

The Nation 05/09/06

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Guest lazyphil

She lived a stones through from me, not sure if still there or not but it made me smile when this happened..... :o

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_Greer

 

On April 23, 2000, Greer was taken hostage by Karen Burke, a nineteen-year-old student from the University of Bath who had been writing to Greer, and who eventually broke into her home in Essex, tied Greer up in the kitchen, and proceeded to smash up the contents of the house with a fireplace poker and rip the telephone from the wall. Dinner guests eventually found Greer lying in a distressed state on the floor, with Burke hanging onto her legs, shouting "Mummy, mummy".

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