Jeremy Renner’s Neighbor Believes He Died for a ‘Couple Seconds’ After Accident

Jeremy Renner, and the neighbors who came to his aid, opened up to ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer about his horrific New Year’s Day accident.

The “Avengers” star nearly died when he was crushed by a snowplow in Nevada. The snowplow was parked but began rolling toward his nephew Alex, spurring Jeremy to action. He tried to jump back on the vehicle to stop it, and that’s when he was run over.

“Jeremy Renner: The Diane Sawyer Interview — A Story of Terror, Survival, and Triumph” aired Thursday night, revealing more details about what happened, including an animation showing how Renner was crushed by the heavy machinery.

Diane describes what happened in a voice-over, saying, “What he does remember is losing his footing, falling off the side of the machine. He’s alright, but afraid for Alex… It is a virtually impossible, dangerous leap back onto the rolling tracks… This is when the fast-moving tracks hurl him forward in front of the machine.”

Jeremy says at that point he made a vow. “That’s when I screamed, by the way, when I went under the thing, ‘Not today, motherf**ker!’”

At that point, he says, “Too many things are going in the body to feel pain — it’s everything,” describing it as being “as if your soul could have pain.”

Sawyer narrates, “He felt it crush his toes, then ankles, then legs, his chest up to his eye that is bulging out.”

Renner says, “I could see my eye with my other eyes… I just remember seeing stars.”

In another portion of the interview, Jeremy recalls the pain, saying he felt “all of it. I was awake through every moment.”

His neighbors Rich Kovach and Barb Fletcher came to his aid that day.

Kovach recalls the horrific scene, saying, “He had some blood coming out of his ears, his nose for sure. And then his eye — it looked like it had been pushed out.”

Fletcher adds, “It was a horrible sound to listen to someone, just literally watching somebody die in front of you, and you feel so helpless.”

As the 911 call plays — with the sound of Jeremy moaning in the background — Rich says, “This is the sound of someone that was dying.”

Fletcher says she feels Renner “did pass away for a couple of seconds.”

“At one point, he just got a clammy feel to him, he turned this gray-green color, and I feel in my heart that I feel like we lost him for a second,” she says. “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,” Fletcher emphasizes.

At another point in the conversation, Rich says, “He was just in such pain. And the sounds that were coming out of him — and there was so much blood in the snow.”

Kovach goes on, “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.”

Fletcher says she saw “a lot of blood coming from [Renner’s] head and just grabbed one of the towels.”

She recalls applying pressure with the towel while the actor struggled to breathe.

At another point in Renner’s interview with Sawyer, he says, “If I was there, on my own, that would’ve been a horrible way to die. And surely, I would’ve. Surely. But I wasn’t alone — [I was with] my nephew. Sweet Alex. And the rest of the calvary came.”

Now, Jeremy is on the road to recovery and using a walker as well as working with a sports physician for hours a day.

He will make his first public appearance at the “Rennervations” screening on Tuesday in L.A.

“Jeremy Renner: The Diane Sawyer Interview — A Story of Terror, Survival and Triumph” is streaming now on Hulu.