Jeremy Renner tells full story of how he was crushed by snow plough

Jeremy Renner has shared how his brush with death unfolded in a snow plough accident that left him with life-changing injuries.

The Oscar-nominated actor said he “forgot to apply the parking brake” on the vehicle before being run over by it, breaking more than 30 bones, collapsing a lung and piercing his liver.

New photographs show Renner attached to a ventilator with a brace around his neck as he lies in a hospital intensive care bed, his face visibly bruised.

Renner said he was at fault in the accident and apologised to his family for putting them through the ordeal in an interview with ABC on Thursday.

He was driving the plough to pull one of the family’s trucks out of the snow and onto the pavement, and said he was worried about the safety of his nephew, Alex, as the plough began to skid on ice.

Alex had just unhooked the chains connecting the truck and plough. Renner moved to stick a foot out of the plough and glance back at Alex, but did not set the parking brake.

He then lost his footing, falling out of the plough’s cab. ABC shared a detailed re-creation of how the incident unfolded.

“You shouldn’t be outside the vehicle when you’re operating it, you know what I mean? It’s like driving a car with one foot out of the car,” Renner, seated in a wheelchair, told Diane Sawyer, an ABC News journalist. “But it is what it was. And it’s my mistake, and I paid for it.”

Renner then jumped back into the vehicle to stop the plough from rolling back and crushing his nephew. He stepped onto the plough’s moving wheel tracks, which threw him forward, and the vehicle ran over him.

Neighbours who tended to the 52-year-old actor, best known for playing Marvel superhero Hawkeye in the Avengers films, said they found him with blood all around him, shallow breathing and with a crack in his skull.

Rich Kovach and Barb Fletcher, some of the only neighbours who were at home that day, said they thought Renner “did pass away for a couple of seconds”.

“At one point, he just got a clammy feel to him, he turned this grey-green colour and I feel in my heart that I feel like we lost him for a second,” Ms Fletcher told Sawyer. “He closed his eyes. And I just tried to keep him awake. I really feel he did pass away for a couple of seconds. I really do.”

Mr Kovach said he was shocked at the “amount of blood” Renner’s injuries had caused.

“And then he was – he was just in such pain,” he said. “And the sounds that were coming out of him, and there was so much blood in the snow.

“And then when I looked at his head it appeared to me to be cracked wide open. And I could see white, I don’t know if that was his skull ... maybe it was just my imagination but that’s what I thought I saw.”

Ms Fletcher recalled grabbing towels to apply pressure as Renner “struggled to breathe”. She saw “a lot of blood coming out of his head”.

Renner said he gestured to his family with a sign language motion that means “I’m sorry” as soon as he woke up in hospital. “It’s my responsibility,” he said. “I feel bad that my actions caused so much pain.”

Screws and titanium rods were used by doctors to repair broken ribs. Metal was also placed in his legs and face to rebuild his eye socket.

The actor is now undergoing hours of gruelling therapy for his injuries, and was shown walking with the aid of a machine.

Renner was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor for his work in 2008 film The Hurt Locker and for best-supporting actor for his work in 2010 film The Town.

He is slated to make his in-person return to Hollywood on Tuesday at a red-carpet event for his TV series Rennervations, in which he helps repurpose older vehicles such as buses and provide them to communities in need.

Renner credited the support of his family with helping him survive the accident, saying: “I’ve been refilled and refuelled with love and titanium.”