Jeremy Renner felt his skull crack in hellish snowplough accident
Jeremy Renner felt his skull crack during his nightmarish snowplough accident.
‘The Hurt Locker’ actor, 53, had his chest and legs pulverised by his tank-style, 14,300lb Pistenbully Snowcat as he tried to stop it hurtling into his nephew on New Year’s Day, 2023, in Reno, Nevada, and he has now detailed the most graphic details yet of the near-fatal crush – including how his left eye bulged out of its socket as he fought for breath.
He told Men’s Health: “(The Snowcat) undulates, because there’s four sections of tires with these metal tracks – it pulls it like a tank. I remember every undulation.
“I remember my head cracking on the thing and it just pressing on me – it’s exactly like you think it would feel.
Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
READ NOW
“An immovable object and a crushing force, and something’s gotta give.”
“But thank God my skull didn’t fully give. And then it kept going. Undulate, undulate, undulate, undulate.
“Cheekbone broke, eye socket broke, and then from the crushing of getting run over by the machine, my eye bulged out.
“I could see my left eyeball with my right eyeball. I was screaming for a breath.”
Jeremy went on about how he battled to survive: “There was no breathing happening. It’s hard to use your stomach muscles when you have 14 broken ribs and a popped lung.
“I don’t know this at the time – I just needed to get air. I was going through the checklist of my body, figuring it the f*** out.
“The first five minutes were about how I’m going to breathe… I started getting really tired. My heart rate’s going lower, lower, lower. Huooohohh, huooohohh, just this exhaustive breathing for 45 minutes.
“But with the exhaustion there was almost peace. The EMTs arrived and I thought, I have to give my body up to them, because I’m cooked. I’m not getting up. These aren’t just cramps. I’m not gonna walk back down the driveway to see my family.”
Jeremy spent 12 days in an intensive care unit after his ordeal and called the experience a “f****** disaster”.
He added: “Showering, going to the bathroom – everything was a disaster. Whooooooooo! They give you medications so you don’t go to the bathroom, so you get constipated.
“And you pee in a jar. It was awful. That’s when you know things aren’t going great – you’re peeing in a plastic jug.
“It took me 17 minutes to get out of bed. I was happy to sometimes sit up and push myself into a chair and move a little bit.
“But a shower – everything took like half a day. I couldn’t get stuff wet.
“Your hair gets super greasy and gross and you stink, but I had all these staples I couldn’t wet, and I wasn’t going to f****** risk infection. So I had sponge baths.”
After months of physiotherapy Jeremy is still continuing to recover and is said to have just taken a lead role in the third movie of the ‘Knives Out’ franchise.