“HELL’S Kitchen” chef Gordon Ramsay nearly died while filming an episode of his U.K. show, when he slipped off a steep cliff in Iceland and plummeted into an icy creek below while hunting colorful Puffin birds to cook.

Ramsay, 41, panicked when his heavy boots weighed him down in the icy water beneath the 280-foot sheer rock face on which the aquatic sea birds roost.

“I thought I was a goner,” Ramsay told London’s Sun newspaper. “They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.”

Ramsay, who describes himself as an excellent swimmer, said he panicked as he felt his lungs filling with water. He managed to pull his boots off and 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.

On the shoot Ramsay was also bitten on his face by one of the feisty puffins and required three stitches to close the wound.