Jeremy Renner reveals he saw ‘left eyeball with right eyeball’ after horror accident and wrote haunting ‘last words’

Lying in his hospital bed, hooked up to numerous machines after breaking 38 bones in his body, Jeremy Renner feared he would never be able to work again.

Now the Marvel star has spoken about his miraculous comeback after a horrific snow plowing accident in which he suffered a fractured skull and almost died.

The 53-year-old superhero actor’s chest and legs were crushed by the six-and-a-half-ton machine as he tried to prevent it from rolling onto his nephew.

His near-fatal injuries were so severe that he could see with one eye and in the hospital he wrote down his last words.

But just 18 months after his horrific accident, he has returned to television screens for the third season of the TV drama “Mayor of Kingstown” and will star alongside Daniel Craig in the third “Knives Out” crime film next year.

The American star of “Lethal Command” had to undergo emergency surgery and multiple operations, exercise daily, use an anti-gravity treadmill, follow an anti-inflammatory diet and convert his home into a rehabilitation center.

Even now, every day is a struggle.

Of the accident in which he was run over by a giant snow blower outside his home in Washoe County, Nevada, on New Year’s Day 2023, he told Men’s Health magazine: “I remember my head hitting the thing and it just pressing down on me – it feels exactly like you would imagine.”

“An immovable object and an overwhelming force and something has to give.

“But thank God my skull didn’t give way completely.”

He added: “I could see my left eyeball with my right eyeball.

“I screamed for air.

“I had to squeeze out all my air energy just to be able to suck air in again.”

After a snowfall of over 12 feet, Jeremy had used his snow plow to help others get moving, including trying to tow his nephew Sawyer’s truck.

But then the plow began to roll down the slope and Jeremy tried to jump into the vehicle to save Sawyer.

Instead, he was drawn into the line of fire of this action.

His neighbors called the emergency services, who were able to get him out from under the plow, stop the bleeding and take him to the hospital.

Jeremy said: “I remember being intubated and handcuffed.”

Fears of the family

Because he had a tube in his throat to help him breathe, he was unable to speak to his worried family.

After the first operation, he was placed on life support for two weeks.

The shock was terrible for them. He told TV presenter Jimmy Fallon: “It happened to my parents, it happened to my poor daughter, it happened to my nephew who was there.”

Using sign language, he told his relatives that he was “sorry” and later wrote his final wishes on his smartphone.

In tears, Jeremy, who has an 11-year-old daughter named Ava, recalled leaving a message that said: “Don’t make me live hooked up to tubes or machines, and if I have to take medication or painkillers for the rest of my life, just let me go now.”

Thanks to the medical team, he was able to breathe independently again.

But the pain from the broken bones, including his ribs, pelvis and jaw, was so severe that he could barely cope.

His face is reinforced with titanium to support his destroyed eye socket. The same metal was also used to rebuild his ribcage and rods were inserted in one leg.

His friends helped him. His Avengers colleague Anthony Mackie was the first co-star he saw after waking up in the hospital, and Robert Downey Jr. called him regularly to distract him from his injuries.

The first daily challenge was to get out of bed.

Jeremy said: “It took me 17 minutes to get out of bed. Sometimes I was happy to sit up and squeeze myself into a chair.”

Then I learned to walk again through intensive physiotherapy.

Three months after the accident, he posted photos of himself with a walking stick and electric scooter at a fair.

Each day included “countless hours of physical therapy, peptide injections, IVs and injections, stem cell and exosome treatment, red light/IR therapy, 2.0 atmosphere hyperbaric chamber, cold bath, and the list goes on.”

Painful recovery

In the summer of the same year he was able to walk without a cane and meet up with friends again.

His biggest challenge is to strengthen his legs through regular training.

He drinks a lot of protein supplements and even secretly mixes them into his morning espresso.

But he has to force himself to get up and continue with his rehabilitation.

Jeremy said: “I’m like Benjamin Button – I feel 90 years old in the morning.

“I wake up and just want to die. As the day goes on, I slowly age until I feel like I’m 45. That’s something I look forward to too.”

Notably, he began filming The Mayor of Kingstown in January of this year, performing stunts such as kicking or punching his fellow actors.

However, in a podcast he said that major action roles, such as Hawkeye in the Disney Avengers blockbusters, are currently out of the question due to his injuries (including 38 broken bones).

Jeremy said, “I just don’t have the energy for it. I don’t have the fuel. I have to put so much fuel into this reality, this body, and all this stuff.”

However, he does not rule out returning to Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” series at some point.

Right now it’s about taking each day as it comes and trying to be stronger than the day before.

He concluded: “I’m still trying to live in reality. I’m trying to live.”