Two days after a serious accident landed him in critical condition in the hospital, actor Jeremy Renner updated worried fans on his condition Tuesday afternoon.
“Thank you all for your kind words,” he posted on Instagram alongside a selfie that showed him in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen tube in his nose, with the left side of his face badly bruised. “Im too messed up now to type. But I send love to you all.”
Renner is widely known for portraying Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and several of his co-stars left comments on his post to show their support.
“Speedy recovery buddy,” wrote Chris Hemsworth, who stars as Thor alongside Renner in the “Avengers” movie franchise. “Sending love your way!”
Another Marvel figure, Chris Pratt, who stars in “The Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Avengers” films, wrote, “Continued prayers your way brutha” and added a heart emoji.
“My brother I love you,” commented Taika Waititi, director of “Thor: Ragnarok” and its sequel, “Thor: Love and Thunder.”
Earlier in the day, fellow Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo wished his “brother” Renner a “full and speedy recovery” on his own Instagram account.
“Please send healing goodness his way,” wrote Ruffalo, who stars as the Hulk opposite Renner in the “Avengers” franchise.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn also tweeted that his “heart is with” Renner.
Around the time Renner posted his health update on Tuesday, a press conference was held to shed more light on how his accident happened.
Snowy conditions delayed the medical response to Renner after he was run over by his snowplow on New Year’s Day in Nevada, authorities said at Tuesday’s press conference.
About an hour had passed between the first 911 call before Renner, 51, was airlifted from Mt. Rose Highway to a Reno-area hospital, said Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam.
Balaam called the incident a “tragic accident” and said no foul play was suspected. Renner was not impaired during the accident, he added.
The Lake Tahoe area had received about three feet of snow the night before, forcing the closure of many roads and drivers to abandon their vehicles, Balaam said. That complicated first-responder efforts to get to the scene.
“The delay was a direct result of the weather, the traffic moving around abandoned cars in the roadway and the closure of Mt. Rose Highway,” Balaam said.
Renner’s personal vehicle was among the abandoned vehicles stuck in the snow, Balaam said. He had been using his snowplow, a 14,000-pound Tucker Sno-Cat, to pull his car, which was being driven by a family member, out of the snow.
After freeing the vehicle, Renner hopped out of his snowplow to talk with his relative. During that time, the snowplow started to roll on its own, Balaam said. In an attempt to stop it, Renner ran and tried to hop into the driver’s seat of the plow and was then run over.
A neighbor saw him try to jump into the snowplow and lost sight of him until the plow came to a rest in a pile of snow in front of his driveway, Balaam said.
After undergoing surgery Monday, Renner was in critical but stable condition, according to his representative, who said the actor suffered “blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries.” CNN reported that Renner underwent two surgeries for “extensive” injuries.
Investigators will be inspecting the snowplow for possible mechanical failure to determine why it started to roll, Balaam said.
Renner is an active member of the Reno community who is known to help other residents and to donate to the city, Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve told the Reno Gazette-Journal. He moved to Washoe County more than a decade ago and has lived there in between film and television shoots.
Renner keeps a snowplow at his residence located near the highway on the side of a snowy mountain. The Lake Tahoe and Reno area has been inundated with snow in recent days after a series of storms poured over Northern California. Last month, Renner tweeted a photo of a car covered in snow and said, “Lake Tahoe snowfall is no joke.”
