According to whats been reported on the aussie news site (gave up on CNN, dont know if its there or not) two men (a marine and a venom specialist) say
Quote:
Mackay-based marine specialist Peter Fenner thought the action would have caused more trauma. "That's against the basic principles and could well have made things worse," he said.
"The more you start pulling things around the more damage you do to yourself."
While the stingray's barb is coated with a low-level poison and can cause problems, it is also sharp with a serrated edge.
Removing it from the body would cause more bleeding and tissue damage.
Bryan Fry of the Australian Venom Research Unit at Melbourne University said he believed it would have been better to have left the barb in as it would stem the bleeding. "To pull the barb out would have taken a lot of force and could do more damage," he said. "The serrations mean it would not slide out like a knife and pulling it out could have caused more tissue damage.
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but an actual Doctor says
Quote:
However, Hugh Wolfenden, of Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital, said it was very difficult to know what to do in such a circumstance. "Generally you wouldn't remove an object because usually it is stemming any bleeding by plugging the hole," the surgeon said.
"However if the barb was in the heart it could be different. The heart is moving around and maybe lacerating itself more against the object and making a bigger hole."
Dr Wolfenden operated on a patient who suffered a similar attack on Sydney's Coogee beach.
He said the poison from the stingray could have eventually caused "necrosis" of the heart tissue, which alone would have been deadly, but the bleeding around the heart could also have compressed Irwin's heart and blood would have rushed into the pericardial sac.
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whole article is here
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...008780,00.html