The Hawkeye star died momentarily when he was crushed under a snowplough – and he says he did not want to return
When Haweye star Jeremy Renner was crushed by massive snowplough the experience changed his life. The actor was left with 38 broken bones, a collapsed lung and even his eyeball exploded out of the socket.
But as he fought to breathe he momentarily died at the scene – leaving him with an overwhelming feeling of what happens in the afterlife. Speaking on Lorraine on Friday he explained there was just one thing – “love”.
He told the show his near death experience was “difficult to quantify”. And he said he has realised recently: “The devil doesn’t exist when you are dead. That came to me last night.
“The devil – hatred – have to be the same. Hatred dies out, suffocates itself on the coattails of love. That’s the only thing you take with you when you die. It’s the most beautiful place.”
And the actor said when he “came back” he hadn’t wanted to return. Laughing he told viewers: “Can you imagine? It was like there’s my eye, that’s sitting on the ice. My twisted legs.”
The Mayor Kingstown star was injured in the “incident” – he refuses to call it an accident – which happened on New Year’s Day in 2023. He was helping a family member get a stuck vehicle out of the estimated three feet of snowfall from the night before when he was run over by a 14,300-lb. snowplow.
The Marvel actor was told at the time he would never walk again but has gone on to heal – but has previously said his recovery will be a “forever” process.
He has written about his experience and journey to recovery in a book, My Next Breath named after the moment he knew he had to keep on breathing or he would pass out and die. Lorraine viewers were told how the incident left hims with a heart rate so low he was clinically dead, his legs were twisted and his eyeball was out of its socket.
He said: “By the time the paramedics got there I’d already passed and came back. They got there 10 minutes later. My heart rate was pretty low and I was hypothermic at this point. I was more at risk to die permanently from the hypothermia
“It’s interesting to be able to see your left eye with your right eye. It came out of my head.”
He told how when he was 12 he had gone to a Lamaze breathing class with his mum who was pregnant at the time and he had used this later in life such as when doing auditions so he didn’t “forget to breathe”. It was this which also helped him as he lay in the snow.
Trapped under the snowplough he realised he needed to make a conscious effort to breathe or he would die. He said: “I didn’t know exactly why but I knew I wasn’t breathing and I wasn’t going to breathe unless I forced air in.
“I was struggling, I was suffocating. My ribcage and my lung was popped and all these other things were happening. I didn’t know that at the time but I thought maybe it was a cramp or some other workout. I couldn’t get air. It was essential otherwise you pass out, your organs fail and you are dead.”
He also told how the experience had changed his life and the way he dealt with fame. Writing in his book he said he often lived as a hermit, eating sandwiches in toilets at airports, waiting until the last second to get out and get on the plane.
He said: “There has been a road or a pathway between myself and the public being famous for the man that I am and not the role that I played. It’s very different. Sure I can be known as Hawkeye or this person or that person, whatever, but I’m also known for just being the man that I am and being treated as the man that I am, not as a product on the shelf that you deserve a selfie with.
“It’s become much more intimate and beautiful.” He said people would say “meaningful” things such as “glad you are with us”. He said people now had “really encouraging, loving things to say” rather than in the past when it would be ‘hey, let’s get a selfie together”.
