SYDNEY (AP) — Australia’s famed “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin knew he was dying after a massive stingray stabbed him in the chest hundreds of times, the only witness to the fatal 2006 attack said in his first detailed public account of the beloved conservationist’s death.

“We’re saying to him things like, ‘Think of your kids, Steve — hang on, hang on, hang on,'” Justin Lyons, Irwin’s longtime cameraman, told Australia’s Studio 10 morning show this week. “And he just sort of calmly looked up at me and said, ‘I’m dying.’ And that was the last thing he said.”