Hollywood star Jeremy Renner has shared new details about the near-fatal snowplough accident that almost cost him his life, describing it as the result of a “tiny but monumental” mistake.
The Oscar-nominated actor reflected on the terrifying New Year’s Day 2023 incident at his Lake Tahoe home, where he was pulled under a 14,000-pound snowcat while trying to save his nephew, Alexander Fries.
In an extract published in The Times from his forthcoming memoir, My Next Breath, the Mission Impossible star shared the moment he knew he was in trouble.
The 54-year-old penned: “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 for ever.”
Renner explained that while sitting in the driver’s cab, he noticed the snowplough heading toward his nephew.
He jumped out to intervene but slipped.
“My feet lost their grip on the moving tracks, and I never made it to the cab. I lurched violently forward, out of control,” he wrote.
“In that split second I was catapulted off the spinning metal tracks, arms flailing. I arced over the front of the tracks, propelled forward, down on to the hard-packed ice, where my head hit the ground hard and instantly gashed open.
“There came terrible crunching sounds as 14,000lb of galvanised steel machinery slowly, inexorably, monotonously, ground over my body. It was a horrifying soundtrack.”
The actor suffered 38 broken bones, a collapsed lung, and a pierced liver during the accident.
His nephew rushed to help him before emergency crews arrived. Renner was airlifted to hospital, where he spent over two weeks undergoing multiple surgeries.
Despite the life-changing injuries, Renner has made a remarkable return to work and recently filmed the third installment in the popular Knives Out detective franchise, Wake Up Dead Man.
Early reports revealed Renner had tried to leap back into the moving plow to stop it before he was dragged underneath.
Months later, he said he would endure the ordeal again to save his nephew.
"I've lost a lot of flesh and bone but I have been refueled and refilled with love — and titanium," Renner joked afterward.
Speaking to People, Renner said that writing his memoir, due for release on April 29, helped him process the trauma.
“I don't not talk about it,” he said. “It's part of my life every day, and it's always a wonderful reminder of the strength of the human spirit and how fragile the body is and how badass it is at recovery.”
Earlier this year, Renner marked two years since he was almost crushed to death by a snowplough with a poignant social media post.
