Jeremy Renner is getting brutally honest about what went down after his terrifying snowplow accident, and it’s not what anyone expected.
In his new memoir, My Next Breath, the 54-year-old actor says he knows he died for a moment on that icy ground in January 2023. The Marvel star had jumped out of a snowplow cab to save his nephew, only to end up being crushed by the 14,000-pound machine himself. He broke 38 bones and nearly didn’t make it, but what he experienced in those minutes was something he says changed him forever.
“I know I died, in fact, I’m sure of it,” Renner writes. He describes a feeling of total connection and energy, something that wasn’t visual but was deeply felt. “There was no time, place, or space, and nothing to see, except a kind of electric… energy,” he said. It wasn’t panic, it wasn’t pain, it was a kind of serene adrenaline that had him flashing through his entire life in a way that was both overwhelming and peaceful.
Renner was stuck out on the ice for around 45 minutes before emergency help arrived. During that time, his heart rate slowed to just 18 beats per minute. “After about thirty minutes on the ice of breathing manually for so long, an effort akin to doing ten or twenty push-ups per minute for half an hour… that’s when I died,” he says. He recalls how his body just gave out, and all he felt was quiet exhaustion. But mentally, something wild was happening.
“What came to me on that ice was an exhilarating peace,” he writes. “The most profound adrenaline rush, yet an entirely tranquil one at the same time: electric serenity.” He describes seeing his entire lifetime, all at once. “It could have been ten seconds; it could have been for five minutes. Could have been forever. Who knows how long? In that death there was no time, no time at all, yet it was also all time and forever.”
Yeah, Renner doesn’t throw around words like “heaven” or “afterlife,” but he’s clear that what he felt was real and powerful. “All life was grand; all life just got better in death. Everything and everyone I love or ever loved in my life was with me,” he said.
This isn’t just a dramatic actor moment, Renner’s brush with death was very real. He nearly lost his life, and instead of just talking about recovery, he’s diving straight into the emotional chaos and strange beauty of what happened. It’s rare, raw, and weirdly uplifting.
And now, with his body still healing and his mind changed forever, Renner is sharing it all. From near-death to near-peace, the man who plays unstoppable heroes on screen faced something even bigger, and came back with one hell of a story.
- Blake Lively Pulls Scooter Braun Into Lawsuit Drama - June 13, 2025
- Brian Wilson’s Daughters Break Silence After His Death - June 13, 2025
- Could Taylor Swift Be the Chiefs’ Secret Weapon in 2025? - June 13, 2025
