Photos of Jeremy Renner’s gruesome snowplow accident have been revealed for the first time on “Good Morning America.”
In a preview for his first on-screen interview since the January incident, Renner, 52, gets emotional speaking to ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer about the near-fatal accident.
The “Hawkeye” actor told Sawyer, 77, that he refuses to be “haunted” by the memory of the incident, which occurred outside his residence in Nevada and left him critically injured.
“I shifted the narrative of it being victimized or making a mistake or anything else,” Renner says in the hourlong special. “I refuse to be f – – king haunted by that memory that way.”
A nearby neighbor said he saw a lot of blood and that when he looked at Renner’s head, it appeared to be “cracked wide open.” The man, Rich Kovach, said he could see white and wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was Renner’s skull or just his imagination.
Members of Renner’s family, including his nephew Alexander Fries, whom he saved from the plow, will also be featured in the special.
Though his act of bravery left him hospitalized, Renner wouldn’t change what he did.
“I’d do it again,” Renner said confidently. “Because it was going right at my nephew.”
The actor also revealed in the interview that he was writing his “last words” to his family while in the hospital.
“I’m writing down notes on my phone. Last words to my family,” he shared, holding back tears.
Renner was hospitalized after “experiencing a weather-related accident while plowing snow” and suffering “extensive” injuries, breaking over 30 bones, in Lake Tahoe on New Year’s Day.
He was airlifted to a hospital near Reno, Nevada, after a neighbor who happened to be a doctor applied a tourniquet to his leg to stop the bleeding. Renner was later transferred to the intensive care unit after surgeries following the incident.
He came home from the hospital in January and has been recovering since.
“Jeremy Renner: The Diane Sawyer Interview – A Story of Terror, Survival and Triumph” will air Thursday on ABC at 10 p.m. EST and will be available to stream later on Hulu and Disney+.
