American actor and musician Jeremy Renner gave his first interview since his life-threatening snow plow accident in January, which left him with over 30 broken bones.
The “Hawkeye” actor sat down with Diane Sawyer for his first television interview since the Jan. 1 incident.
The ABC News special, titled “Jeremy Renner: The Diane Sawyer Interview – A Story of Terror, Survival and Triumph”, aired Thursday ahead of the world premiere of Renner’s new Disney+ vehicle-renovation show "Rennervations" on April 11, which will serve as the actor’s first public press appearance since the accident.
He is also set to participate in a Q&A after a screening of the series, which focuses on renovating different vehicles. According to the ABC News special, Renner told Sawyer that the next time fans see him on a red carpet, he wants to be walking.
Renner detailed exactly how the incident occurred, revealing that he was run over by his 14,330-pound Sno-Cat after attempting to jump back in the vehicle to save his 27-year-old nephew, Alex.
The “Mayor of Kingstown” actor said that he and his nephew were attempting to tow a Ford Raptor out of the snow with his snow plow. As Alex undid the chain connecting the two vehicles after successfully getting it out of the snow, Renner’s plow began to slide on the ice. Worried about his nephew’s safety, Renner stuck one foot out of the plow to look back at Alex, neglecting to set the parking brake. That’s when he lost his footing and fell out of the vehicle’s cab.
“I just happened to be the dummy standing on the dang track a little bit, seeing if my nephew was there. You shouldn’t be outside the vehicle when you’re operating it, you know what I mean? It’s like driving a car with one foot out of the car, but it is what it was. And it’s my mistake, and I paid for it,” Renner said.
Afraid that the vehicle would roll back and “sandwich” Alex with the truck, Renner attempted to jump back into the Sno-Cat to disengage it — at which point he was run over.
“That’s when I screamed, by the way, when I went under the thing. Not today, motherf**ker!’ is what I screamed. Sorry for the language,” he recounted.
Renner added he remembered “all of” the pain. “I was awake through every moment. It’s exactly what you would imagine it would feel like,” he said. “It is hard to imagine what that feels like, but when you look at the machine and you look at — I was on asphalt and ice. I wish I was on snow. It felt like someone took the wind out of you. Too many things are going on in the body to feel pain, it’s everything. It’s like if your soul could have pain.”
Recalling his injuries, Renner said he could “see my eye with my other eye.”
Alex was able to hop into the Raptor before the plow hit the car, sending it into a nearby snow bank. When Alex got out of the car and ran to Renner, he didn’t think he was alive.
“It’s pretty terrifying to see the person that you look up to for so much to be like that, to see them like that,” Alex said.
Alex ran to the nearest house in the area, where he spotted Rich Kovach standing in his garage with the door halfway down. Alex grabbed Kovach’s legs and shouted, “You gotta help me!” Kovach and his partner, Barb Fletcher, came to the rescue.
Kovach and Fletcher remembered trying to keep the actor alive while they waited 21 minutes for paramedics to trek through the snow. As can be heard on the 911 call, Renner was letting out loud moans as he lay on the asphalt.
“This was the sound of someone that was dying,” Fletcher said.
“When I looked at his head, it appeared to me to be cracked wide open and I could see white. I don’t know if that was his skull, maybe just my imagination, but that is what I thought I saw. So I knew it was extremely serious. He had some blood coming out of his ears, I know for sure, and then his eye, it looked like it had been punched out,” Kovach said.
Fletcher added, “At one point, he just got a clammy feel to him and he turned this gray-green color. I really feel he did pass away for a couple seconds. I really do,”.
Renner was eventually airlifted to a hospital in Reno, where his family met him. Once they arrived, Renner signed “I’m sorry” to them in sign language. “I mean, I did that to them. It is my responsibility, I feel bad that my actions had caused so much pain,” he said. “
Renner’s injuries were so serious that he penned a goodbye note to his family in the hospital.
“I’m writing down notes in my phone to — last words to my family. Don’t let me live on tubes on a machine, if my existence is going to be on drugs and painkillers, let me go now,” Renner said through tears.
Sawyer recounted Renner’s injuries during the interview, saying: “Eight ribs broken in 14 places. Right knee, right ankle broken, left leg tibia broken, left ankle broken, right clavicle broken, right shoulder broken. Face, eye socket, jaw, mandible broken. Lung collapsed. Pierced from the rib bone, your liver — which sounds terrifying.”
Renner’s rib cage and eye socket were rebuilt with metal plates and screws, and his jaw was mended with rubber bands and screws. A titanium rod was placed in his broken l
eg.
During the interview, he revealed that his Marvel co-star and friend Anthony Mackie stayed at his bedside while he was in hospital.
Renner and Mackie met when co-starred in the 2008 war thriller The Hurt Locker. The pair reconvened in the Avengers franchise, where Renner plays Hawkeye and Mackie plays Falcon.
“It’s the actions. the best thing anyone said to you. Mackie was there at my bedside in Reno,” he said.
The Avengers stars assembled to wish him a speedy recovery after Renner was crushed by the snowplow.
As Renner continues his recovery, he said he’s fine with no longer doing his own stunts. “I’m okay with a stunt guy doing it at this point. I’m 52, it’s fine, I’ve done enough. I’m okay to do more, right? But I have no ego, like go for it, I don’t care. I’ll be in my trailer.”
However, painful memories of the accident still plague his mind. “Last night, I didn’t sleep for shit knowing I was going to have to talk about it today. I have no regrets. I’d do it again,” he said.
“I refuse to have that be a trauma and be a negative experience. That is a man that I’m proud of, because I wouldn’t let that happen to my nephew. I shift the narrative of being victimized, or making a mistake, or anything else. I refuse to be fucking haunted by that memory that way.”
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