Avengers actor Jeremy Renner was recovering in a Reno, Nev., hospital Tuesday after being injured in a snow plow accident over the weekend when he was helping a family member dig a vehicle out of a snowbank, authorities said.
In a media briefing on Tuesday, Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said Renner was run over by his snow plow that began rolling by itself after he used it to dig his car, which was being driven by a family member, out of a mound of snow. A powerful winter storm had dumped more than 600 centimetres of snow on the area Saturday night into Sunday morning.
Renner had used his plow, described by Balaam as a PistenBully that weighed over 14,000 pounds, to extract the car. The sheriff said Renner went to talk to the family member when the machine began to roll.
“In an effort to stop the rolling PistenBully, Mr. Renner attempted to get back into the driver’s seat … it’s at this point that Mr. Renner was run over,” Balaam said.
The sheriff noted that no foul play was suspected and said authorities were continuing to investigate what they believed to be “a tragic accident.”
In an effort to combat misinformation, Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam described the series of events that led to the snowplow accident involving actor Jeremy Renner.
Renner posted to his Instagram account Tuesday thanking his fans for their wishes and posing for a selfie from his hospital bed in Nevada.
“Thank you all for your kind words,” he wrote on Instagram. “Im too messed up now to type. But I send love to you all.”
A publicist for Renner said in a statement Monday that he suffered blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries and remained in critical but stable condition following surgery at a Reno hospital, where he was flown by helicopter to receive treatment.
Renner plays Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, a sharp-shooting archer and member of the superhero squad The Avengers in Marvel’s sprawling movie and television universe.
He is a two-time acting Oscar nominee, scoring back-to-back nods for The Hurt Locker and The Town. Renner’s portrayal of a bomb disposal specialist in Iraq in 2009’s The Hurt Locker helped turn him into a household name.
The Avengers in 2012 cemented Renner as part of Marvel’s grand storytelling ambitions, with his character appearing in several sequels and getting his own Disney+ series, Hawkeye.