"The Crocodile Hunter" and Australian wildlife expert Steve Irwin died on Sept 4, 2006, following an attack by a stingray while filming for the documentary Ocean's Deadliest.

After eight long years, cameraman Justin Lyons, who witnessed Irwin's last moment, spoke for the first time through an interview with Network Ten's morning show Studio 10.

Lyons recalled that he and Irwin rode an inflatable in search for something interesting for the documentary show. They came across a "massive" stingray and filmed it.

He said they were able to film the stingray. However, as they aim to take final shot of it swimming away from Irwin, the stingray started stabbing wildly.

"I had the camera on, I thought this is going to be a great shot, and all of sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly, hundreds of strikes in a few seconds. I panned with the camera as the stingray swam away and I didn't know it had caused any damage. It was only when I panned the camera back that I saw Steve standing in a huge pool of blood."

Lyons said that reports saying that Irwin provoked the stingray were wrong. He concluded that the stingray must have taken Irwin's shadow as a tiger shark.

"Contrary to what I read in the papers and what I heard at the time ... (the stingray barb) didn't come out, Steve didn't pull it out. It's a jagged barb and it went through his chest like hot butter."

Lyons said that Irwin knew he was in trouble right there as the stingray stabbed him "hundreds of times."

"He had a two-inch-wide injury over his heart with blood and fluid coming out of it and we had to get him back to the boat as fast as we can. He obviously didn't know it had punctured his heart ... even if we had got him into an emergency ward at that moment we probably we wouldn't have been able to save him. I was saying to him things like 'think of your kids Steve, hang on, hang on, hang on', and he calmly looked up at me and said 'I'm dying and that was the last thing he said," Lyons recalled during the interview.

Lyons shared that as a rule of thumb, he kept the camera rolling. The CPR and all medical interventions were recorded.

"Steve had this rule that no matter who was injured we had to keep filming ... a second cameraman filmed the CPR," he said.

The video was never released and Lyons thinks it will be for the best.

"Never (should it be seen), out of respect for everyone and his family, I would say no. I don't know what's happened to it and I hope it would never see the light of day."