Jeremy Renner remembers ‘overwhelming force’ of snowplow that twisted his bones ‘like a pretzel’

Actor Jeremy Renner reflected on the excruciating pain he endured when he was run over by a snow plow in January 2023 – a terrifying ordeal that left him with more than 38 broken bones – and how his path to recovery healing left him with a new perspective on life. .

The scare happened on New Year’s Day near his home in Reno, Nevada, while he was shoveling snow with his nephew.

The 53-year-old star, known for his role as Hawkeye in Disney’s Marvel superhero franchise, had left the cabin of his massive snow groomer PistenBully. As he spoke with his nephew, the 14,000-pound machine moved forward.

Renner made a “nanosecond judgment” and tried to climb back into the machine’s cabin to stop it, he recalled in an interview with Men’s Health published Tuesday.

But his foot got caught in the groomer’s huge tank-like tracks and they pulled his body down.

“I remember every ripple. I remember my head cracking on the thing and it pressing down on me – it’s exactly what you think it would be. An immovable object and an overwhelming force, and something has to give. But thank God my skull didn’t completely give in,” he told the magazine.

“And then it continued. Wave, wave, wave, wave. The cheekbone broke, the eye socket broke, then from the crushing from being crushed by the machine, my eye bulged out. I could see my left eye with my right eye,” he explained.

“I was screaming to catch my breath. I needed to get all my air energy out just to be able to suck in air again,” Renner recalled. “There was no breathing. It was a muscle I had to use to press, and it’s hard to use your stomach muscles when you have 14 broken ribs and a burst lung. I didn’t know it at the time – I just needed to get some fresh air.

Renner said he spent the first five minutes thinking about how to breathe, then after about 10 minutes his neighbors appeared and called 911.

“My ribs sting and my lung stings. Mind you, my leg was twisted like a pretzel – I didn’t feel that! I’m like, ‘Ooo, shit, this is going to hurt later.’ Ooo, it’s my eyeball, it’s a bit weird!’ I’m like, ‘S…, I wonder if this breathing problem is just a cramp. Just let me breathe properly, and then I can tell the family we’re not going skiing today,” he recalled.

“But then I started to get really tired. My heart rate goes down, down, down. ‘Huooohohh, huooohohh,’ just this exhaustive breathing for 45 minutes. But with the exhaustion, it was almost peace,” he continued.

When the paramedics arrived, he thought, “I have to give them my body, because I’m done.”

From there, Renner has fragmented memories of being flown to the hospital and his days spent in intensive care.

He reported breaking more than 38 bones: his ribs, his pelvis, his right knee, his right ankle, his left shin, his left ankle, his right clavicle, his right shoulder blade, his eye socket, his jaw, his mandible, his wrist and left toes. His lung collapsed and was bruised, his liver was punctured by a rib, he had a large laceration to the back of his head that was stapled shut, he couldn’t hear at all. through his right eardrum and suffered a contusion and an impact to his left eye.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself surrounded by his family.

“I said, give me a pencil – I was completely intubated, I had the giant tube in me – I wrote, ‘Holy shit.’ I am really sorry. I love you all so much.’ It seemed like a strange thing to say, but it was the driving energy of my awakening in the first place, brother,” he said.

Renner, who is the oldest of seven children and described having a large, fiercely loving family full of children, said he did not hesitate to protect his nephew during the accident.

“I don’t let anyone get hurt on my watch. This is why I put my fucking life on the line for my nephew. I’m not going to let this thing crush him! … I couldn’t live with that,” he said. “If it was the other way around, if I didn’t come back to this thing and it crushed him… I wouldn’t be a good man right now… I’d be fucking haunted.”

Renner, known for his roles in action franchises like “The Avengers” and “Mission: Impossible,” said he had no idea he would be injured.

“I was like, ‘No problem, I got this, I’ll just dive in on these songs, turn off a button, it’s a piece of cake!’ »

Since the accident, he has undergone physical therapy, interventions such as red light therapy and hyperbaric chamber therapy, and returned to work on the third season of the Paramount Plus show “Mayor of Kingstown,” where he plays Mike McLusky.

But the return was not easy. He said that during the filming that began on January 9, he was “fragile.”

“We were walking on ice and I have no energy. I fell asleep. But I think this will be the best season yet because of it. Make no mistake, Mike is still Mike – he’s still the guy you want as a friend. But it’s more emotional, because I’m more emotional.

A key part of his return to work was a change in perspective.

“The last thing I wanted to do – to be honest with you, I almost quit filming and do this show – was fiction… I have to live in real reality here, because of these bones and these joints – and I have to say fake lines and fake words and pretend to be what? “Here’s how I changed it, because I only have control of my perspective: I’m coming to Pittsburgh to recover in my body and get better every day, and I’m going to do this show on the side. Au instead it is the opposite.

The accident also taught him to receive the love that poured in from his family and friends.

“There are a lot of people who love me. And I had no idea. I had to learn to receive all this love, and it’s not easy. From people you don’t even know. Why is this accident such a thing? But then I said, “F—, stop asking why.” Just receive it,” he said. “I was famous for having a bow and arrows; now I’m famous for overcoming something as a man.