Jeremy Renner's Chilling Snowplow Accident: Inside His Brush with Death and Unseen Recovery

Jeremy Renner Opens Up About His Snowplow Ordeal

There’s no Hollywood script wild enough to match what Jeremy Renner lived through in January 2024. He didn’t just break a few bones. He shattered more than 30, pinning his own hopes for survival to stubborn determination and the faces of those he loved. That’s what he reveals in his deeply personal memoir, My Next Breath: a raw account of one of the most terrifying moments in his life—and the fight to return from it.

It all started when Renner tried to help his nephew out of a tight spot near his Nevada home. The teen’s car had slipped off a driveway, and Renner did what most uncles would do—he rushed in to help, not knowing a 14,000-pound snowplow would soon change his life forever. The machine’s PTO shaft trapped him underneath, crushing him under a staggering weight. As emergency responders struggled to reach him, he wasn’t just fighting blood loss or a pile of shattered bones. He was up against time and the Nevada chill.

Renner doesn’t sugarcoat how close he came to the edge. In the book, he describes his heart rate dropping to an eerie 18 beats per minute. For doctors, that’s basically gone. For Renner, it felt like slipping out of this world and into something no film could capture. He writes about a kind of peace—"electric serenity," a snapshot of every person and instant he’d ever loved all coming together outside the limits of time. It wasn’t panic. It was something cleaner, stranger, nearly magical.

Family, Recovery, and What Nobody Saw

Even as Renner hovered in that mysterious space, he knew one thing pulled him back—his family. He credits them, especially his 12-year-old daughter Ava, for keeping his spirit anchored to life. Their support, both in the moment and long after, carried him through what doctors called a miracle recovery. He doesn’t hold back about the depths family love can reach when everything else fades.

But it wasn’t just bones and blood wounds that threatened Renner’s life. Hypothermia crept in quickly after the accident, making the freezing cold a more urgent threat than his brutal injuries. Emergency responders had to act fast, getting warmth to his body before the chill did permanent damage.

Social media followers caught glimpses of his struggle, as Renner posted updates through the months of grueling rehab that followed. What’s striking, though, is how he blends the clinical brutality of his injuries with sharp, honest thoughts about mortality. The book digs into those long nights when he stared into the unknown, measuring pain against hope. It doesn’t gloss over the setbacks, the slow healing, or even the parts he’s not ready to share publicly yet.

• Jeremy Renner paints a vivid picture of resilience and raw fear.
• He invites readers into intimate moments—both brutal and beautiful—caught between life and death.
• Above all, he shows a side of recovery that’s rarely discussed: not just healing, but questioning what comes next.

In My Next Breath, Renner breaks past the glossy sheen of celebrity survival stories. He’s unfiltered, matter-of-fact, and sometimes disarmingly honest. For anyone who thinks recovery ends when the headlines fade, his story is a jolt—a reminder there’s more to survival than just walking away from broken bones.