Jeremy Renner recently opened up about the harrowing snowplow accident that nearly claimed his life in January 2023 and reflected on what he believes was a moment of death and the peace he felt in those final seconds.
The 54-year-old “Avengers” actor, who broke more than 30 bones after being crushed by a 14,000-pound snowplow while attempting to save his nephew at his Nevada home, recounts the experience in his new memoir, My Next Breath.
“As I lay on the ice, my heart rate slowed, and right there, on that New Year’s Day, unknown to my daughter, my sisters, my friends, my father, my mother, I just got tired,” Renner wrote. “After about 30 minutes on the ice, of 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.”
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In an interview with Us Weekly, Renner elaborated on what he described as a near-death experience. “I could see my lifetime. I could see everything all at once,” he said, noting his heart rate dropped to 18 beats per minute.
“In death there was no time, no time at all, yet it was also all time and forever,” he said, describing “exhilarating peace” and “a constantly connected, beautiful and fantastic energy.” He recalled a space without form or structure, “no time, place, or space, and nothing to see, except a kind of electric, two-way vision made from strands of that inconceivable energy.”
Renner said he felt a force urging him not to “let go,” which brought him back into his body.
The actor has spoken candidly about the accident in recent months. In an interview with People, he described the writing process as healing.
“Writing about it has been very emotionally cathartic to have to go word by word through it all again,” he said. “I don’t not talk about it. It’s part of my life every day, and it’s always a wonderful reminder of the strength of the human spirit, and how fragile the body is and how badass it is at recovery.”
“I’m not haunted by the incident — not too often anyway — by the images, the sounds,” he added. “But I am reminded of my new reality, and it’s wonderfully positive. I didn’t die.”
According to the statistics, near-death experiences (NDEs) are reported by about 17% of those who nearly die.
Some Christian leaders acknowledge that NDEs can be powerful and potentially real experiences, but caution believers to evaluate them against Scripture.
In a recent interview with The Christian Post, John Burke, pastor of Gateway Church, a multisite church based in Austin, Texas, and author ofImagine the God of Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Revelation and the Love You’ve Always Wanted, said that while studying near-death experiences, he discovered a striking commonality among them all: Every individual, regardless of their religious background, experiences the God of the Bible.
“I interviewed 70 people on every continent and found that they all encountered the same God; it didn’t matter their culture, ethnicity or religious background. God is the God of all nations,” Burke told CP.
The pastor said that NDEs are God’s “new global apologetic,” intended to affirm His existence, the reality of the afterlife and His desire for a relationship with every person.
“They all say, ‘I never wanted to leave His presence and of all the beauty I experienced, all of these great reunions with people I love who’ve gone on before me, nothing could compare to just being in this presence,” Burke said.
He clarified that while every individual encounters the God of the Bible during an NDE, he is not suggesting they will end up in Heaven. Burke said he doesn’t believe these people are experiencing an “entrance into eternity” or a “tunnel of death,” rather, they’re encountering “something in between.”
“This can confuse some Christians,” he said. “But I like to remind them that the Apostle Paul was not a believer in Jesus. He was arresting Christians and having them jailed and killed when the same God of brilliant light appeared to him on the Damascus Road in Acts 9. When Paul asks, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ He says, ‘I’m Jesus.’ But Jesus didn’t tell him what to do, and He didn’t explain the message of the Gospel to him.
“I believe God is saying to the world, ‘I’m real. Heaven is real. Hell is real. And I love every person from every nation; I want you to be my child through what I did through Jesus, so you can turn your heart back to me and be made right with me.’”
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
