Over a year after his hospitalization, Jeremy Renner has opened up in detail about the snowplow accident that nearly cost him his life during Wednesday night’s episode of “The Tonight Show.”
“The machine got out of control, out of my hands. It was running into my nephew and was crushing him between the truck and the [snowplow], so I jumped back on it — or tried to — and got caught up in the tracks,” Renner told Jimmy Fallon. “It broke like 38 bones. It was brutal, dude.”
The actor then revealed that one of his ankles, half of his face and the right side of his back are now “metal,” meaning they were reinforced with titanium. He also suffered from 14 breaks in the ribs during the accident.
“You see like your eye with your other eye — it was because my eyeball was out — and weird things go through your head, right?” Renner continued as Fallon appeared visibly shocked. “It’s like, ‘Guess that’s real, but I’ll worry about that later.’ I look and my legs are all twisted up, ‘I’ll worry about that later. I’ve got to worry about breathing first.’”
Before asking him questions about his accident, Jimmy Fallon checked to make sure the “Avengers” star was OK with talking about his injuries. “I think it’s pretty cathartic. It can be quite healing,” Renner said.
In January of last year, Renner was run over by a snowplow after saving his nephew from the vehicle. The actor assured Fallon that he knew how to operate the machine but because of “terrible conditions” the accident happened. At the time, Renner and his family were stuck “in like 12 feet of snow.”
Renner knew that he had to remain calm or he’d die. Despite his grisly injuries and brutal recovery, the actor focused on the unlikely positives from his near death experience.
“There are so many great gifts to being tested to your limits — your physical limits, your spiritual limits, emotional limits. I won’t have a bad day for the rest of my life. It’s impossible, right? There’s that gift,” Renner said.
But he also learned how to “not panic and how to focus.” He pointed to how difficult it was for him to breathe after his accident, not knowing that he had a popped lung. “Thinking of it step by step is a really great reminder of what we all should be looking at in life,” Renner said. “If we get too stressed or if things get too difficult or it’s insurmountable odds or whatever it might be, just put one foot down then put another foot down.”
“I think I can achieve anything at this point,” he added.
The Marvel star also revealed that Anthony Mackie was one of the first people he saw when he woke up in the hospital after being on life support for “three or four days.” He was said he was visited by some of his other Marvel co-stars but didn’t reveal them by name.
“It was like a living wake kind of thing. Everyone was coming to say their goodbyes, which is kind of weird, right? But at least Mackie was there, and he was really worried,” Renner said. “To receive that much love is also a very difficult thing for anybody to do.”
