Reflecting on his existence, Jeremy Renner wondered if he would be “just a backbone and a brain” as shocking images of where he was crushed by a seven-ton snowplow just months after the horrific incident were revealed.
Renner had been using a Snowcat plow to help his adult nephew Alexander Fries pull his car out of deep snow when he got out and forgot to put the emergency brake on.
The plow started rolling towards his nephew and the 52-year-old is said to have tried to get back into the snowplow as it approached to stop him. Then he was pulled underneath and crushed.
In his first interview since the Jan. 1 accident near his home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, the 52-year-old also revealed that he told his family, who sat by his side as the Avengers star recovered, ” I’m sorry.”
In the horrific, death-defying accident on New Year’s Day, he sustained 30 fractures, a collapsed lung and his liver was punctured by a shattered rib.
Reflecting on his existence, Jeremy Renner wondered if he would be “just a backbone and a brain” as shocking images of where he was crushed by a seven-ton snowplow just months after the horrific incident were revealed
Blood-soaked snow reveals the horrific accident that occurred near Renner’s home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada
In the horrific, death-defying accident on New Year’s Day, he sustained 30 fractures, a collapsed lung and his liver was punctured by a shattered rib
“I moved my legs and said, this is really broken. That leg is going to be a problem,” he said.
“What does my body look like? Will I be just like a backbone and a brain like a science experiment? Is this my existence now? What will my existence be like?’
Renner sat in his wheelchair and spoke to ABC’s Diane Sawyer. He held back tears as he revealed the moments in hospital where he couldn’t even speak to his loving family, who desperately wanted him to survive the accident.
“I signed saying I’m sorry because I’m sorry,” he said, before opening up about how his mother has never left his side.
‘She’s reading Stephen King, some horror thing. But she reads it like she’s telling me Dr. Read to Seuss.”
“I just wanted him to hear my voice,” his mother Valerie Cearley said.
Cearley broke down as she recounted the moment she heard about her son’s accident, saying: “His breathing was so awful.”
Pictures from the scene showed a pool of blood where Renner had been crushed, and his neighbor Rich Kovach recalled the moment he made the harrowing 911 call that would ultimately save his life.
“The sounds coming out of him, there was so much blood in the snow,” he said.
“When I looked at his head it seemed wide open and I could see white, I don’t know if that was his skull, maybe it was just my imagination but that’s what I thought I saw. ‘
Valerie Cearley, Renner’s mother, broke down as she recounted the moment she heard about her son’s accident, saying, “His breathing was so awful.”
Pictures from the scene showed a pool of blood where Renner had been crushed, and his neighbor Rich Kovach recalled the moment he made the harrowing 911 call that would ultimately save his life. His partner Barb also shared her memories
Renner had been using a Snowcat plow to help his adult nephew Alexander Fries pull his car out of deep snow when he got out and forgot to put the emergency brake on
His partner Barb Fletcher said she didn’t know who it was but remembered “a lot of blood came out of his head”.
“I grabbed one of the towels that was still folded and just applied pressure. I could tell he was really struggling to breathe,” she said.
Fries, who was by his uncle’s side, recalls telling him to breathe.
“Just breathe, just breathe. That’s it. I was standing over him in that crouched position the whole time, holding his arm, from seconds after that guy walked over,” he said.
‘It was exactly that. I was fixated on him.’
Renner said he refused to be bullied by the situation.
“So I change the narrative of becoming a victim, making a mistake or anything else,” he said.
“I refuse to let that memory haunt me, so I’m talking to my family about it, about all their perspectives, which are horrible.
Alexander Fries, who was by his uncle’s side, remembers telling him to breathe and was also with him during his recovery
Renner said he refuses to be bullied by the situation and is focused on recovery
“We just stuck it out, that’s true love. Suffering, but that feeds the seeds of what love is.’
Renner fractured 30 bones, including both ankles, his right knee, his right collarbone and eight ribs.
He suffered a collapsed lung and his liver was punctured by one of his broken ribs.
Jeremy Renner: The Diane Sawyer Interview – A Story of Terror, Survival and Triumph airs Thursday, April 6 at 10 p.m. EST on ABC.