Jeremy Renner tells bloody and brutal details of a snow plow accident

Sign up for our breaking news emails to get free, real-time breaking news straight to your inbox.

Sign up for our free emails with breaking news

Jeremy Renner has described the gruesome details of the injuries he sustained when he was run over by his seven-ton snow plow in a bizarre accident last year.

In January 2023, the Hawkeye The 53-year-old star was clearing snow from his neighbors’ driveways when he lost control of the 6.3-ton PistenBully snowcat. When he tried to get back in and regain control, he got caught in the chains and was pulled under the wheels.

He was flown by helicopter to the hospital where he underwent several surgeries to treat his injuries.

“I broke 38 bones,” Renner revealed on Wednesday (22 May) during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. “It was brutal,” he admitted.

When asked how much of his body is now metal, the actor tapped the lower part of his leg and said, “Well, that’s metal.” He added that “half of my face is metal” and “the entire right side of my back is metal.”

“There were 14 fractures in the ribs,” he explained. “And you see your eye, with your other eye, because my eyeball was out.”

The avenger The actor continued: “You just have weird things going through your head. You think, ‘Well, I guess that’s true, but I’ll worry about that later.’

“And I looked at my legs. They were all twisted, and I thought, ‘I’ll worry about that later,’ because I have to worry about breathing first, right?”

In disbelief, Fallon asked if Renner panicked during the incident. “No, you can’t. You’ll die,” Renner replied.

He turned the near-death experience into a positive lesson, saying, “(You) are tested to your limits, your physical limits, your spiritual limits, your emotional limits. It’s like I’m not going to have a bad day for the rest of my life. That’s impossible, right? That’s this gift.”

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/month after free trial. Plan automatically renews until cancelled.

Try it for free

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/month after free trial. Plan automatically renews until cancelled.

Try it for free

He continued to reflect on how it taught him not to panic and to focus. “To walk, you have to put one foot on the ground and then the other in front of it, and then you walk. Just like breathing, I had to exhale with all my strength so I could suck air back in,” he said.

“I didn’t know I had a punctured lung and all that other stuff, but I just had to breathe. If I hadn’t breathed, I would have been gone.”

Over a year has now passed since the near-fatal accident and Renner is back at work. In an interview with Good morning Americahe talked about how it felt to be 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 tricky in terms of strength, but by the end you’re usually pretty drained in terms of energy, but I feel pretty strong,” he said. “I had to lean on the cast and crew physically and emotionally to get through the days. They compensated with scheduling and stuff, so I was able to get stronger.”