Jeremy Renner’s January snowplow accident was so gruesome that it caused his eye to pop out of its socket.
“It [was like being under] a giant metal cookie roller,” the “Hawkeye” star joked during a “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” appearance Monday.
“It just missed every vertebrae, did not hit any organs,” he explained. “My brain did not swell.”
However, Renner, 52, noted, “My eye did pop out. That’s weird. But I got pretty lucky that none of the organs got messed up.”
The actor referenced his eye injury again while explaining how “harrowing” the experience was for his nephew Alex Fries, who witnessed the freak accident on New Year’s Day.
“He had to see his Uncle Jeremy on the ground,” he said. “I didn’t see anything, but [he saw] the blood everywhere, the eye.”
Renner first detailed the incident in an emotional interview with Diane Sawyer, which aired last week.
“I believe I could see my eye with my other eye,” he recalled at the time.
The Oscar nominee, who was “awake through every moment” before being airlifted out of his Nevada property, broke more than 30 bones after the 14,330-pound PistenBully ran him over.
“It felt like someone took the wind out of you,” he said. “Too many things are going on in the body to feel pain. It’s everything. It’s like if your soul could have pain.”
Renner appeared to be in high spirits Monday while talking to Jimmy Kimmel, gushing to the studio audience about his recent trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain.
When the late-night host, 55, accused his guest of “making a mockery of his injury,” Renner clarified that he is still in “a ton of pain.”
The “Hurt Locker” star went on to credit the ordeal with helping him lose 20 pounds, quit smoking and free up his schedule, saying, “My year was pretty jammed up until I got crushed.”
