American actor and musician Jeremy Renner has recounted the gory details of the injuries he sustained in the devastating snowplow accident in December 2022, that nearly claimed his life.
The Hawkeye star, 53, broke more than 30 bones and had multiple operations after he was accidentally run over by his six-tonne snowplough while trying to help his nephew on January 1, 2023.
His injuries included eight ribs broken in 14 places, a right knee and ankle broken, a left leg tibia broken, a left ankle broken, a right clavicle broken, a right shoulder broken, and more.
He was airlifted to the hospital, where he underwent several surgeries to treat his injuries. Renner was discharged after two weeks.
“[I] broke 38 bones,” Renner revealed during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “It was brutal,” he admitted.
When asked how much of his body was now made up of metal, he patted the lower part of his leg, saying: “Well, this is metal.” He added that “half my face is metal” and “all the right side of my back is metal”.
“There was 14 breaks in the ribs,” he added. “And you see your eye, with your other eye, because my eyeball was out.”
The Avengers actor continued: “So you just have weird things go through your head. It’s like, ‘Well, I guess that’s real, but I’ll worry about that later.’ And I look at my legs. They were all twisted up, and ‘I’ll worry about that later’ because I got to worry about breathing first, right?”.
In disbelief, Fallon asked if Renner panicked during the incident. “No, you can’t. You die then,” Renner replied.
Turning the near-death experience into a positive lesson, he reflected: “[You’re] being tested to your limits, your physical limits, your spiritual limits, your emotional limits. It’s like, I won’t have a bad day for the rest of my life. It’s impossible, right? There’s that gift.”
He further explained how the experience taught him not to panic and how to focus. “To walk, you have to put one foot down and then another foot in front of it, and then you’re walking. Just like breathing, I had to exhale with all my might, so I can suck air back in,” he shared.
“Didn’t know I had a popped lung and all this other stuff going on, but I just had to breathe. If I didn’t breathe, then I would’ve been gone.”
It has been over a year since the near-fatal accident, and Renner has returned to work. Speaking in a recent interview with Good Morning America, he discussed how it felt being back on the set of his Paramount+ crime thriller, "Mayor of Kingstown."
“Starting the season this year at the beginning of the year was a little dicey, strength-wise, but by the end of it, usually you’re pretty shattered energy-wise but I feel pretty strong,” he said. “I had to physically and emotionally lean on the cast and crew to get through the days. They compensated with scheduling and stuff, so I could get stronger.”
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