Gordon Ramsay almost drowned when he plunged off a cliff into a freezing creek, it has been revealed.
The celebrity chef lost his footing as he descended an 85m-high crag in Iceland's Westman Islands while filming a new series of The F Word, British tabloid The Sun reported.
Ramsay, 41, panicked when his heavy boots weighed him down in the icy water.
"I thought I was a goner," Ramsay was quoted in the newspaper as saying.
"They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.
Ramsay, who described himself as an excellent swimmer, said he panicked as he felt his lungs filling with water.
Finally he managed to free himself from his footgear and swam to the surface after 45 seconds underwater.
Ramsay was thrown a rope by his film crew, who had feared he was dead.
The star chef was treated at his hotel for a badly gashed knee, before receiving a thorough medical examination back in London.
But Ramsay faced another almighty tussle when he finally told his wife Tana about the nightmare.
"I didn't tell her at first," he said.
"I chickened out but she knew something was up. She was upset and extremely pissed off.
"When I was underwater all I could think of was Tana and my kids."
The close shave with death wasn't Ramsay's only problem on the shoot — he was also bitten by a puffin and required three stitches to close the wound.
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