Jeremy Renner is opening up about the January snowplow accident that left him with traumatic injuries for the first time in a TV interview with Diane Sawyer and ABC News.
A first peek at the special shared terrifying audio of the Marvel star moaning in pain in the background of a 911 call after he was pulled under the seven-ton snowplow.
When Sawyer asked Renner, 52, how much of the pain he remembered from the accident, he replied: “All of it.”
“I was awake through every moment.”
Reading from a piece of paper, Sawyer rattled off the list of injuries Renner was treated for in the aftermath of the accident.
“Eight ribs broken in 14 places. Right knee, right ankle broken, left leg, tibia broken, left ankle broken, right clavicle broken, right shoulder broken. Face, eye socket, jaw, mandible broken. Lung collapsed, pierced from the rib bone,” Sawyer said. “Sounds terrifying.”
The accident occurred on New Year’s Day as Renner was trying to use the snowplow to dig out his nephew’s car. When the snowplow started sliding backwards towards his nephew, he leapt out of the vehicle and was pulled under.
“I see him in a pool of blood coming from his head,” Renner’s nephew tells Sawyer in the ABC News special.
“I ran up to him. I didn’t think he was alive,” his nephew added, choking up.
The special, titled Jeremy Renner: The Diane Sawyer Interview – A Story of Terror, Survival and Triumph will air on April 6 ahead of the release of Renner’s new Disney+ series Rennervations.
As of now, a snippet of the 911 call made before Renner was rushed to hospital has been made public ahead of the special’s release.
“Someone’s been run over by a Snowcat. Hurry,” a voice on the call says. “He’s been crushed. There’s a lot of blood over here.”
“He is in rough shape,” the person says as Renner lets out a loud groan in the background. “Keep breathing, man. Keep fighting.”
“Hang in there brother,” the person adds as Renner is heard a second time moaning in pain.
Renner was collected throughout the interview as he and Sawyer discussed his injuries, but he briefly teared up when Sawyer said, “I heard that you had, in sign language, you said to your family, ‘I’m sorry.’”
Renner shook his head yes but wasn’t able to say more and turned his face from the camera.
“I chose to survive. That’s not going to kill me, no way,” he says later in the teaser. “I’ve lost a lot of flesh and bone in this experience, but I’ve been refuelled and refilled with love and titanium.”
“When you look in the mirror, do you see a new face?” Sawyer asked.
“No, I see a lucky man,” he replied.
Renner has kept his fans updated on his physical recovery on social media, where he most recently posted a video of himself walking for the first time on an anti-gravity treadmill.
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