Jeremy Renner asked his daughter to “wait for me” after an accident

Published: June 3, 2024

Photo from Jeremy Renner’s Instagram

Jeremy Renner asked his daughter to “wait for me” after the accident: “I will get better”

By Movieguide® Contributor

Nearly a year and a half after AVENGERS’ Jeremy Renner suffered a near-fatal snow plowing accident, the actor is sharing a poignant conversation he had with his 11-year-old daughter Ava at the beginning of his recovery process.

Movieguide® reported on the accident:

According to the sheriff’s incident report, Renner was trying to save his adult nephew from the snow plow when he himself was run over.

The cause of the accident: The machine started to slide after Renner tried to pull his nephew’s car out of the snow with the plow. He jumped out of the plow without using the emergency brake.

“When Renner tried to stop or divert the snow groomer to avoid injury (to his nephew), he was pulled from the track under the vehicle and run over,” the accident report states.

Renner’s nephew helped him while they waited for medical help, and the actor was flown by helicopter to a trauma center.

He suffered severe injuries to his legs and chest, broke more than 30 bones and had to undergo multiple surgeries. Renner returned home earlier this month after a two-week hospital stay.

On the KELLY CLARKSON SHOW, Renner revealed that life support only really kicked in when treatment was stopped, “because my daughter is my life force.”

Clarkson asked Renner, “How did your little girl cope with it?”

“I saw the fear on my daughter’s face for the first time,” the actor revealed. “The reality of what had happened really hit me. What I had done to my daughter, what I had done to my nephew, my whole family, I really hit home.”

“So I asked her to wait for me. I said, that’s only 38 broken bones, honey. And they’re all going to heal,” he continued. “And I promise if you wait for me, I’ll be better, I’ll be faster, I’ll be stronger than you’ve ever seen before. I promise. You have to wait for me.”

Given the trauma Renner and his family had endured, he needed an outlet to express his feelings.

That outlet was music. A particular song called “Wait” tells the story of the conversation Renner had with his daughter.

“We all wanted to process the incident in some way. Everyone who cared for me before the accident was going through a lot too,” he explained. “So putting it into music was very cathartic for us and even for my daughter because she was a big part of it.”

“My daughter plays piano, and just getting her involved in the process has turned the whole thing into something positive. And that’s what I’ve always tried to do since the accident,” Renner continued. “Music has been a great outlet for me… I always love finding something real that we can all do, and if it turns into something healing, damn, man, all the better.”

The accident also changed Renner’s attitude to life.

“(I’m) probably doing 90 percent of all the things I needed to do… I think in the next six months, hopefully, I’ll be running (more)… I need to set goals for myself,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “I’m going to do whatever I can, whatever it takes, to get better and stronger. This recovery is a two-way street. The rest of my life is about health and wellness.”

“I was blessed with a wonderful fortune from this accident. To die and to be resurrected. I got this break from life, I was able to pause life and really live it,” Renner added. “And (I think) how can I pass that on to people? I think we had a little bit of that with COVID, right? There was a global epidemic, but the silver lining is that we have to pause a little bit, we have to stop and relax and ask what is of value in our lives… There is a wonderful gift in that if you can hold onto that superpower (to recognize) what is of real value in our lives.”