DisneyThe words “Jeremy Renner died” are flooding the headlines, but not for the reason you might think. New details about the Marvel star’s devastating snowplow incident have emerged, sparking renewed interest about what happened.
Renner is best known for playing Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, in the MCU’s original Avengers lineup. One role you might not know him for is Jeffrey Dahmer (he played the famed serial killer in the 2002 movie Dahmer, years before Ryan Murphy’s divisive Netflix series).
However, in January 2023, he made headlines for a very different reason – after being crushed by a 14,000-pound snowplow while saving his nephew from being run over. The accident landed him in the ICU in critical condition.
It was a long road to recovery, with the Marvel actor now reflecting on what happened that day, and how close he was to death, in his new memoir My Next Breath.
Did Jeremy Renner die?
Paramount PicturesNo, Renner is still very much alive. However, he has now revealed that he died briefly after the snowplow incident, describing what he saw on the other side as “beautiful.”
In My Next Breath, which released on April 29, Renner wrote (as per US Weekly): “As I lay on the ice, my heart rate slowed, and right there, on that New Year’s Day, unknown to my daughter, my sisters, my friends, my father, my mother, I just got tired.
“After about 30 minutes on the ice, of breathing manually for so long, an effort akin to doing 10 or 20 push-ups per minute for half an hour… that’s when I died. I died, right there on the driveway to my house.”
Related
“I know I died – in fact, I’m sure of it,” he added, stating that the EMTs said his “heart rate had bottomed out at 18,” which meant that he was “basically dead.” Though it was a traumatic experience for his family, the Marvel star described a feeling of peace during this moment.
“When I died, what I felt was energy, a constantly connected, beautiful and fantastic energy,” he continued. “There was no time, place, or space, and nothing to see, except a kind of electric, two-way vision made from strands of that inconceivable energy.”
In a separate passage, he said, “What came to me on that ice was an exhilarating peace, the most profound adrenaline rush, yet an entirely tranquil one at the same time: electric serenity.
“I could see my lifetime. I could see everything all at once. It could have been ten seconds; could have been for five minutes. Could have been forever. Who knows how long? In that death there was no time, no time at all, yet it was also all time and forever.”
“All life was grand; all life just got better in death,” he added. “Everything and everyone I love or ever loved in my life was with me.”
Despite this moment of peace, Renner felt a force telling him not to “let go” and he was brought back from the brink. And as he reflects back, he feels bad about what his family had to go through.
“Yes, it was an ‘accident’ but whatever I call it, I’m still aware I caused it,” he continued (via the Daily Mail). “It wasn’t on purpose, and I don’t think it was reckless, but I have to live with not applying the hand brake on the Snowcat.
“I know what I did to Alex. I’m deeply conscious of what I did to my family… I caused this heartache; it was entirely my responsibility.
“I had put all that fear and terror onto Alex, who had to hold my arm for 45 minutes and look at his uncle bleed out on the ice. That poor kid will never be the same because of me; he can’t unsee that.
“Neither could any of my family who saw me in the hospital, on life support for three days, a man who could die at any time. My daughter had to retreat to videos of us, deep in a kind of childlike sorrow for which she had no words.”
Inside the snowplow incident
The accident happened outside his Nevada home in Lake Tahoe on New Year’s Day 2023. Renner was attempting to stop the PistenBully snowcat from sliding and hitting his 27-year-old nephew, Alexander Fries.
But in doing so, he was pulled under the vehicle and run over. The injuries were catastrophic: 38 broken bones, a collapsed lung, pierced liver, and significant head injury. He also lost six quarts of blood.
The actor said in his memoir that his family members watched him turn “a gray-green color”. But the biggest danger of all was the risk of hypothermia while lying in the snow for over 45 minutes before first responders arrived.
“Though I’d broken more than 30 bones and lost six quarts of blood (I’d find out the true extent of the injuries only later), an even greater danger to me as the minutes dragged by on the ice was hypothermia,” Renner wrote.
The entire incident was an accident, with the actor stating, “I didn’t engage the parking brake, or disengage the steel tracks. In that moment – an innocent, critical, life-changing moment – that tiny but monumental slip of the mind would change the course of my life forever.”
It was a long road to recovery, involving multiple surgeries and intensive physical therapy. However, in true superhero fashion, Renner made a miraculous comeback.
Last year, it was announced that he’d be starring in the third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man – his first movie since the accident, which is set to drop later this year.
And having been so close to death has ironically given him a new lease of life. “I knew then, as I know now to this day and will always know: Death is not something to be afraid of,” Renner wrote.
“It is not dark, not the end, not a disaster. It is magnificent, and exhilarating; it is your soul, and your love, concentrated in their purest forms,” he added. “Dying, you become connected to the collective energy everywhere all at once, which is itself a kind of divinity.”
You can also read about Renner’s apprehension returning to Mayor of Kingstown, the Renner theory for Knives Out 3, and every MCU movie ranked.