Jeremy Renner has shared new details about his near-fatal snowplow accident in his memoir, “My Final Breath.” The actor believes he briefly died during the ordeal on New Year’s Day 2023. Renner was run over by his 14,000-pound PistenBully Snowcat at his Lake Tahoe home. He wrote, “After about 30 minutes on the ice, of breathing manually for so long, an effort akin to doing 10 or 20 push-ups per minute for half an hour … that’s when I died.”
EMTs later confirmed his heart rate had bottomed out at 18, which Renner described as “basically dead.” At that moment, he felt an exhilarating peace and a connection to a beautiful and fantastic energy.
The accident left Renner with shattered ribs, broken legs, a collapsed lung, and crushed eye sockets.
He vividly recalled hearing his bones crack and seeing his left eye with his right eye. Bodycam footage captured the chaos as first responders raced to save him in freezing temperatures. Renner underwent multiple surgeries and spent most of 2023 fighting his way back to health.
Near-death experience and recovery
On the second anniversary of the accident, Renner took to Instagram to express his gratitude. “I send out my love, respect, and gratitude for the army of people that it took to put me back together again,” he wrote, thanking nurses, doctors, first responders, his nephew, and heroic neighbors.
Renner’s message was one of resilience and appreciation. “With the amount of love and prayers that flooded in from you all around the world (needing each and every one of them), my family never leaving my side, with some divine intervention, a bit of luck, and a whole lot of miracles … I stand firm again. More Open. More Loved. More Connected.”
