Jeremy Renner Reveals the Surprising Comfort He Found in Death During His Near-Fatal Snow Plough Accident

Ever wonder what you’d do if you saw your life literally flash before your eyes—with the added twist of a 14,000-pound snowplow barreling down on you? Well, Jeremy Renner’s got me beat in the “craziest near-death experience” department, and after reading this, you might end up rethinking your last New Year’s Eve plans . It’s one thing to break a few bones doing your own stunts, but the Marvel star shattered over THIRTY, only to come dangerously close to death—yet somehow came back with a story that’s less horror and more… transcendence? In My Next Breath, Renner doesn’t just give us a peek behind the curtain, he tears it right down and sits you next to him in the snow, muscly superhero suit nowhere in sight, as he faces the unvarnished brilliance (and absurdity!) of life, death, and everything in between . Would you find comfort in that great unknown—or just be mad you had to come back for another season? Take a breath (pun intended) and LEARN MORE.

Jeremy Renner has opened up about the ‘great relief’ he felt when he believed he experienced death.

The Marvel star recently said in his memoir, My Next Breath, that he briefly ‘died’ during a catastrophic snowplow accident on New Year’s Day in 2023.

Renner suffered more than 30 broken bones among his horror inures as doctors told him he came ‘within millimetres of hitting a vital organ or major nerve’.

The 54-year-old was run over by his 14,000-pound snow plough while trying to save his nephew, Alex, from the same terrifying fate.

He wrote in his memoir that he briefly died about 30 minutes after as he lay in the snow outside his home, waiting for emergency responders to reach him in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The star had a gruelling road to recovery following the incident. (Instagram/@jeremyrenner)

Renner has since spoken out more about this experience of being ‘removed’ from his body, after writing: “I could see everything all at once. In death, there was no time, no time at all, yet it was also all time and forever.”

He explained that his heart rate slowed as he lay in the cold. “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. I died, right there on the driveway to my house.”

And in a follow-up interview on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast, Remmer described this as a ‘wonderful, wonderful relief’.

“It is the most exhilarating peace you could ever feel. You don’t see anything but what’s in your mind’s eye,” Renner said.

“Like, you’re the atoms of who you are, the DNA, your spirit. It’s the highest adrenaline rush, but the peace that comes with it… it’s magnificent. It’s so magical.”

Doctors had feared he wouldn’t be able to walk again (Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images)

The star even said he ‘didn’t want to come back’ and was ‘so p****d off’ when he was.

“I came back and saw [my] eyeball and I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t, I’m back,’” he continued.

“Saw my legs. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s gonna hurt later.’ I’m like, ‘All right, let me continue to breathe.’”

While he wrote of feeling a ‘connected, beautiful and fantastic energy’ when he ‘died’, he said that he eventually felt something urging him to not ‘let go’.

And now, Remmer sees his revival as a ‘glory moment’, having said in his memoir: “I didn’t f***ing die. So, the celebration of New Year becomes a recognition of the depth of the love in our family.”