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‘Rust’ was unfortunately far from the first on-set fatality in the entertainment business.
Jeff NeiraGetty Images
Alec Baldwin’s 2021 Rust accident and subsequent charges of manslaughter are just one instance among many in Hollywood’s storied catalog of irresponsible endangerment and gross negligence. There are lots of experienced safety professionals working in the industry that help avert some disasters, but there have been many avoidable moments on sets of films and TV shows where things have gone fatally wrong.
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The Crow
Brandon Lee, son of the acclaimed actor and martial artist Bruce Lee, was killed in an on set accident while filming the 1994 superhero flick The Crow. During the shooting of a scene wherein Lee’s character is killed by thugs, actor Michael Massee shot Lee in the chest with a mishandled prop gun, causing Lee to fall backwards instead of forward as scripted. When Lee remained on the ground following the director shouting “cut”, crew members initially thought the young actor was playing some sort of joke on them. After stuntman Jeff Imada noticed Lee’s breathing had become labored and he’d lost consciousness, he was rushed to the New Hanover Regional Medical center in Wilmington North Carolina where he was later pronounced dead.
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The Exorcist
Not only has 1973’s The Exorcist sewn fear in moviegoers for decades, the production itself was a terror for the cast and crew. Early in production, after a bird had flown into a circuit box, the film’s set was completely scorched, but the bedroom where the exorcisms took place were left eerily untouched. Later on, both actors Ellen Burnstein and Linda Blair would suffer serious back injuries following a mechanical malfunction during filming.
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Twilight Zone: The Movie
During production of the 1983 film Twilight Zone: The Movie, actor Vic Morrow and 2 child actors (Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen) were killed in a helicopter crash catalyzed by the improper use of pyrotechnics. The force of the explosions from the pyrotechnics sent the helicopter into a tailspin, crashing into Morrow and the children; Morrow and Le were decapitated by the helicopter’s rotor blades while Chen was crushed by the aircraft’s strut. The segment’s director, John Landis, would be tried and subsequently acquitted for manslaughter in a lengthy, acrimonious trial spanning almost a decade.
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Vampire In Brooklyn
On set of the 1995 cult classic Vampire in Brooklyn, Sonja Davis, the stunt double for the film’s star Angela Bassett, died after falling over 40 ft to her death in a stunt gone awry. Davis’s family alleged Davis was not given proper safety equipment and subsequently sued the filmmakers in a wrongful death suit for $10 million.
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Rust
On October 21, 2021 while on set filming the forthcoming western flick Rust, actor Alec Baldwin discharged a mishandled prop firearm, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Production was subsequently suspended as the Sante Fe County Sheriff’s Office conducted an investigation into the incident, struggling to disentangle the web of fault and responsibility for the shooting. Following accusations of gross negligence by the film’s production team, authorities turned their focus to the production’s armorer and property key assistant, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed; an inexperienced and dubiously qualified armorer whose previously faced allegations of continually violating basic firearm safety protocol. On January 19, both Baldwin and Guiterrez-Reed were charged with involuntary manslaughter.
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Rust, once again
Weeks after the film’s tragic shooting accident, crew member Jason Miller was bitten on the arm by a brown recluse spider while disassembling the movie’s now closed set. Miller was hospitalized after suffering both necrosis and sepsis, requiring multiple intensive surgeries in order to avoid amputation of the bitten limb.
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The Walking Dead
A stuntman for AMC’s The Walking Dead, John Bernecker, died of blunt force trauma after falling from a balcony on-set in Georgia. While rehearsing a stunt, Bernecker fell 20 ft onto a concrete floor resulting in a severe head injury, temporarily halting production on the show’s 8th season. That season’s premiere episode was later dedicated to the stuntman’s memory.
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Maze Runner: The Death Cure
While filming the 3rd and final installment of the dystopian film franchise Maze Runner, actor Dylan O’Brien, cast as the film’s protagonist Thomas, was hospitalized after sustaining serious injuries filming one of the flick’s lauded action sequences. O’Brien’s been reluctant to go into major detail about the accident, but has said he was struck by a vehicle amidst a stunt resulting in brain trauma, a concussion, and a facial fracture. The young actor’s injuries were so serious it took him nearly 6 months to recover and he’d even contemplated leaving the entertainment industry in its entirety.
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Top Gun
Seasoned stunt pilot and aerial cameraman Art Scholl was killed in an airplane crash during the filming of Top Gun in 1985. After losing control of the aircraft following an inverted spin, Scholl plummeted into the Pacific Ocean, losing contact with the film’s ground crew. Both his body and the plane were never recovered.
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Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
In 2015, stuntwoman Olivia Jackson was nearly killed after colliding with a piece of camera equipment while riding a motorcycle in South Africa filming 2016’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Jackson remained in a medically induced coma for 2 weeks, suffering brain trauma, a severed artery, several broken ribs, and multiple torn fingers that would later require her left arm to be amputated. Less than 2 months later another crew member, Ricardo Cornelius, was killed after being crushed by a Hummer on-set.
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Sharie Michaud