Jeremy Renner relives moment he heard his bones ‘crunching’ under 14,000lb snowplough
A 'tiny but monumental slip of the mind' changed the course of Jeremy's life forever.
Jeremy Renner has given a blow-by-blow account of his near-fatal snowplough crush that left the Marvel star with more than 30 broken bones.
The American actor required multiple operations after he was injured by the seven-tonne vehicle on New Year’s Day in 2023.
The Avengers actor was airlifted to hospital from rural Nevada and later woke up in intensive care with only shards of memories of what happened in between.
Jeremy, 54, was pretty much written off by the world, as it looked certain he would lose his life after heroically saving his young nephew from the horror accident.
But, in some miracle, he survived—and is now recovered to tell the tale.
In a new interview, the Hawkeye superhero gives a harrowing account of what happened that day, his language descriptive enough to send chills down anyone’s spine as he relives the brush with death.
The actor was pulled under a seven-tonne snowcat (Picture: @jeremyrenner/Instagram) Jeremy had 38 broken bones (Picture: @jeremyrenner/Instagram)Jeremy, who has a nine-year-old daughter called Ava, had not long toasted the New Year with his loved ones, with a week of skiing and snowboarding planned ahead.
But disaster struck when he and his nephew Alex braved the icy temperatures to try and clear the snow using his snowcat.
‘I was in the cab of the snowcat, and Alex was on the ground attaching the Ford truck to the back of the snowcat with chains. We started pulling the truck out of the snow and got it unstuck,’ he recalled to The Sunday Times.
‘Alex went to unlatch it from the snowcat as I started to turn the snowcat around. But its snowblade was up high, and I couldn’t quite see Alex, who was somewhere in front of me. I got out of the driver’s seat and stepped on the tracks to talk to him.’
But a ‘tiny but monumental slip of the mind’ changed the course of Jeremy’s life forever, as he forgot to apply the parking brake.
The snowcat began to slide towards Alex, with Jeremy realising instantly he was in danger, describing the snowcat as ‘menacing’ and knowing his nephew was ‘doomed’ if he didn’t act quickly.
It’s a miracle he survived, as the star now has a newfound ‘gratitude’ for life (Picture: @jeremyrenner/Instagram) He will forever be in recovery (Picture: @jeremyrenner/Instagram)‘Time slowed to a near stop. I heard the cracking of the ice under the tracks of the snowcat, the lumbering torque of the engine. Somehow, I had to stop it.’
With just ‘one shot’ to prevent catastrophe, Jeremy leapt to hit the STOP button, which, in retrospect, he sees was an ‘impossible thing to have attempted’.
He didn’t make it to the cab as his feet lost their grip, at which point he was ‘catapulted off the spinning metal tracks, arms flailing.’
Then, he was ‘propelled forward’ onto the tracks, his head hitting the ground and ‘instantly gashed open’.
Jeremy suddenly had thoughts of his family flashing before his eyes after the fall, while the snowcat continued charging at him.
‘There came terrible crunching sounds as 14,000lb of galvanised steel machinery slowly, inexorably, monotonously, ground over my body. It was a horrifying soundtrack,’ he described.
Jeremy has said he doesn’t regret the incident as, despite nearly losing his life, he saved his nephew (Picture: RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)‘The reality of what was happening kicked in. I held my breath as blood rushed to my face, and I felt a super-intense light-headedness. And yet I was completely conscious of what was happening.
‘I knew I was under the machine. I knew that my skull was split like a watermelon, my brain pulverised like meat.’
The weight of the machine made it impossible for him to get out of the way; his legs ‘mangled’ right away while the sharp edges of the ‘cat’s 76 steel ridges dug into his body.
He described it as ‘unbearable’ pressure on his whole body: skull, jaw, cheekbones, molars; fibula, tibia, lungs, eye sockets, cranium, pelvis, ulna, legs, arms, skin… all cracking and snapping.
At one point, his left eyeball burst out of his skull, and he heard all 38 bones crack and shatter.
Seconds later, the machine had made its way over him entirely, and Alex screamed after seeing him lying there, a pool of blood surrounding him.
Jeremy Renner's injuries after snowplough crushRibs: 6 broken in 14 places
Pelvis: 3 breaks in lower pelvis
Right ankle: broken
Left leg: tibia broken; spiral fracture
Left ankle: broken
Right clavicle: broken; dislocated
Right shoulder blade: cracked; dislocated
Face: eye socket, jaw and mandible broken
Left hand: broken
Left wrist: fractured
Left toes: 3 breaks — 2 middle toes broken, left side of foot cracked
Lung: collapsed and bruised
Liver: pierced from rib bone
Head: major laceration at the back
Right eardrum: damaged
Right knee: major strain
Left eye: contusion and impact
His nephew had sought safety inside the truck, but didn’t even have time to close the door. Alex later told Jeremy that he slammed the ‘cat into reverse, hoping to avoid a painful death and closing his eyes.
After regaining consciousness, Jeremy felt as though pretty much ‘everything’ was broken, struggling to breathe and letting out ‘guttural groans’ before images of his family and young daughter came flooding back.
At this moment, Alex ran to a neighbour’s house to get help, as Jeremy remained paralysed with 14 broken ribs, a punctured lung, sliced liver, dislocated collarbone, and broken shoulder.
As we know, he was taken to hospital via helicopter and his memory of the next few days remains blank. Jeremy underwent many surgeries, including having plates inserted into his cheeks and screws in his jaw, before returning home on January 13 with a long road of rehabilitation ahead.
Looking back, he acknowledges that his loved ones went through ‘living hell’ that week, but he has a newfound ‘love and gratitude’ for life.
‘I’ll forever be in recovery; it never ends. But I accept that.’
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