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Jeremy Renner, an actor who became a household name after his role in the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, and as Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, made headlines in 2023 for pretty ominous reasons. Having gotten into a near-fatal accident with his Snowcat snowmobile, he was critically injured and hospitalized, with there being public speculation on whether he’d even make it out alive.
In his upcoming memoir, My Next Breath, Jeremy recounts the highly-publicized near-death experience and how he got through it. Notably, he mentions that the accident did in fact kill him for a time before he was resuscitated.
Jeremy Renner believes the Snowcat accident really did kill him
Jeremy has spoken about the infamous snow-ploughing accident before, in an interview with ABC News’s Diane Sawyer, and in the June 2024 issue of Men’s Health magazine. On New Year’s day in 2023, his nephew was in danger of being crushed by a Snowcat, only for Jeremy to push him out of the way and get crushed himself. He suffered blunt chest trauma and 38 broken bones, and had to be rushed by helicopter to the Renown Regional Medical Center, where he was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit after surgery.
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In My Next Breath, Renner recalls his brush with death, saying: “After about 30 minutes on the ice, 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 could see my lifetime. 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.”
It took 45 minutes between his nephew calling for help and emergency services arriving. His skin began to turn blue thanks to frostbite and blood loss, and his heart rate bottomed out at 18. From what he recalls, Renner described his death as “an exhilarating peace” but somehow remained anchored to the world of the living long enough for help to arrive.
Renner would also look back on his childhood and reminisce about the Lamaze birth technique classes he’d attended with his single mother when he was 12 years old. These classes, held at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), weren’t something he enjoyed back then, but he now credits the breathing techniques he learned with saving his life.
With his chest collapsed, thus impeding his ability to breathe reflexively, Renner claims that the focused breathing techniques he learned gave him the ability to push through the life-threatening situation he was in. As he put it in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, “… I was just moaning and groaning, huffing to try to try to get the air out, just so I can get a breath back in … because if you can’t breathe, I’m a goner.”
Jeremy also wrote about what happened after his hospitalization. He revealed that he resented being cooped up in a medical ward, and began plotting his escape on January 4, just three days after the accident had occurred. The escape attempt failed, however, and he remained in treatment until his full recovery. Jeremy also spoke of his apprehension towards painkillers such as Oxycontin that were prescribed during his recovery, stating he quit them cold turkey within just a couple of weeks.
My Next Breath released on April 29, 2025 and is available at book retailers everywhere.
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