It turns out some of the wildest Gold Rush moments never even made it to camera. Things got really dangerous and dark while mining for gold. Star Todd Hoffman opened up about the time he thought he was going to die.
Speaking with Fox News, Hoffman said that he almost died while mining for gold during Gold Rush. He was chased through the jungle. At the time, Hoffman had $12,000 in cash on him, which totaled about $2.5 million in Guyanese money. Armed men ambushed him trying to rob him.
"I got chased around Georgetown, Guyana, when I was in the jungle by a whole car full of guys with guns," Hoffman said. "I just come from the bank and I had two backpacks full of cash."
Hoffman ran to his car to escape the men, kickstarting a wild car chase. The Gold Rush star planned to abandon his money to save his life.
"Once I got in the car, they're right on us," he said. "They were holding their guns out the window. They hadn't started shooting at us yet, but I said, 'Open the windows. We're going to throw the cash out the window.'"
Hoffman ended up with the craziest story to tell.
'Gold Rush' Star Barely Survived
"But we got in this car chase like you'd see in the movies, man," Hoffman continued. "And I said, 'Once we get stuck, I'm throwing the cash out and everybody just lay down. We're going to throw the cash out.' We just kept right in front of them. And my driver got us away. And I don't know how he did it, but he was literally screaming at the top of his lungs and so it added to the drama, like my driver screaming. I'm just freaked," he added with a laugh.
He added, "And his name was Vicky. Vicky screaming, we're in a Toyota Tercel. I mean, we're getting chased. That was probably the closest I came to probably getting shot and dying." Fortunately, Hoffman and his team managed to outdrive the armed men. They escaped with their lives and lived to mine another day.
"Vicky got us away," he recalled. "Vicky somehow busted a right, busted a left, busted a right and then somehow they got stuck and we got away. And then we went into this guy's garage. We put the car in there because they were roaming around."
While filming Gold Rush in the jungle, Hoffman said he would almost die every week.
"The things I did in the jungle were just - they didn't put them on camera because it was too freaky," he said. "It was like sad, like dangerous sad."
