Jeremy Renner says he won't be "victimized" by snowplow injuries in emotional first interview: "It would have been a horrible way to die"
Jeremy Renner is opening up about the New Year's Day snowplow accident that left him in critical condition. Sitting in his wheelchair in an exclusive interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer released on Thursday, the "Avengers" star recalls the horrifying moment, saying it was "my mistake," and "I paid for it."
The day of the incident, Renner was plowing the snow ahead of a day of skiing with his family in Reno, Nevada. He had used the more than 14,000-pound snowcat several times before, and on this day, his nephew Alex was out there helping him. At one point while driving the plow, it kept slipping and Renner couldn't see where his nephew was, so Renner opened the door and stuck one foot out to try and find him.
He told Sawyer that all he remembers next is that he lost his footing and fell off the side. He was alright at first, but worried that the machine was going to sandwich his nephew in between it and the nearby truck, he tried to immediately jump back in.
But when he jumped up on the snowplow's tracks, they immediately threw him off — right into the vehicle's path.
"It is what it was and it's my mistake," he said, "and I paid for it."
ABC played the 911 call that was made the morning of Renner's Jan. 1 accident. In that audio clip, Renner's neighbor, Rich Kovach, who was helping the actor, can be heard saying, "he's been crushed," and begging for immediate assistance.
"Listen to me, I need — you might wanna get life flight out here immediately," the man says as Renner can be heard moaning in the background. "...He's in rough shape."
Kovac told ABC that Renner was covered in blood and that it seemed as though his skull was "cracked wide open."
"His eye looked like it had been pushed out," he said.
In the interview, Renner said he remembers "all of" the pain. At one point, he said, "I could see my eye with my other eye... I just remember seeing stars."
"I was awake through every moment. It's exactly like imagine it would feel like," he said. "...I was on asphalt and ice. It was like someone took the wind out of you."
The snowcat ended up pushing the truck Alex was in up against a snowbank, but he was safe and able to get out. He saw Renner in a pool of blood and immediately ran to Kovac's house for help.
It took 20 minutes for emergency responders to get there through the snow, wind and ice. They got him into the ambulance in just minutes, but by the time he got to the hospital, he was in a "maximum level of trauma," doctors said.
"His entire right side of his chest was fractured," a surgeon told ABC. Doctors said he had more than 30 broken bones in various parts of his body.
When his family got there, Renner couldn't speak, but he was able to use sign language to convey a single message: "I'm sorry."
"I am sorry. I did that to them," he said. "It's my responsibility. I feel bad that my actions caused so much pain."
At one point, Renner asked for a phone and typed out a note of his "last words to my family."
"Don't let me live on tubes on a machine and if my existence is going to be on drugs and painkillers, just let me go now," he recalls asking of them.
But Renner, who doctors described as young and healthy with a good support system, prevailed and is making progress in his recovery. In the interview, he was seen using a walker and a wheelchair to get around. He only got onto his feet one day earlier.
"If I was there on my own, it would have been a horrible way to die," he said. "And surely it would have."
Months after the incident, Renner said he doesn't want the story to be about him being a victim, but about the strength that came from it.
"I refuse to have that be a trauma and be a negative experience. ... I wouldn't let that happen to my nephew, so I shift the narrative of being victimized or making a mistake or anything else," he said. "I refuse to be f---ing haunted by that memory that way."