CRIKEY! THAT WAS CLOSE...

Robert’s horror crocodile encounter has Terri worried for her son

As Robert Irwin stared into the eyes of one of Australia Zoo’s most aggressive crocodiles, Casper, he knew he was in trouble. Standing in a narrow enclosure, he dropped a chunk of raw meat in the hope of distracting the 3.7-metre, 350kg predator, to absolutely no avail.

“Bail! Bail!” the teenager screamed at his crew as he ran for his life. “He looked straight past the food and right at my head and just starts running,” Robert nonchalantly recalled on Today last week.

For Robert, 18, it made for excellent viewing in the finale of his Animal Planet series Crikey! It’s The Irwins, but for his long-suffering mum Terri, it was her worst nightmare come to life.

“Terri wasn’t there that day, but when Robert told her about it, he was super casual,” says a source.

“The footage told a much different story. She almost had a heart attack when she saw just how close Robert came to a tragic end.”

BRAVE FACE