Freak accidents happen. If you start drawing conclusions about the risk of various activities and animals from literally one incident, you’ll end up with all kinds of erroneous and silly opinions about what is dangerous and what is not.

Focusing in on Stingrays, the number of confirmed deaths by stingrays is maybe as high as 30 ever. Yes, Steve Irwin was one of them, but that doesn’t magically move the statistics, it just makes it more salient.

For comparison, coconuts kill 150 or so people per year. In a real, measurable way, taking a nap under a coconut tree is more dangerous than swimming with a stingray.