Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally wounded and writer-director Joel Souza was injured yesterday afternoon on the Santa Fe set of the Western film, Rust. The accident occurred when actor-producer Alec Baldwin discharged a prop firearm, CNN is reporting.
After the incident, Hutchins was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital via helicopter, where she was pronounced dead by medical personnel, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has announced.
Souza was transported to Christus St. Vincent’s Regional Medical Center by ambulance, where he’s being treated for his injuries. Details on his condition have not yet been released.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has released a statement about the accident, which reads: “According to investigators it appears that the scene being filmed involved the use of a prop firearm when it was discharged.
Detectives are investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged.”
The Sheriff’s Office added that the investigation remains open and active. No charges have been filed against Baldwin.
In addition to Baldwin, Rust stars Travis Fimmel and Jensen Ackles. The drama follows a 13-year-old boy who goes on the run with his long estranged grandfather, who’s played by Baldwin, after he’s sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher.
This isn’t the first time that someone was accidentally killed by what were supposed to be prop guns with blanks on a movie set. While shooting the cult classic gothic superhero film, The Crow in 1993, actor Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, was killed when he was struck by a bullet from a gun that was supposed to have just blanks. However, even blanks can be deadly if they’re fired at very close range, particularly less than 20 feet.
The 28-year-old actor was filming a scene in which his character, Eric Draven — a musician who returns from the dead to avenge his lover’s murder — is shot by a street gang member.
According to contemporaneous reports published in the L.A. Times, a prop gun that was used for the scene contained blanks that had been improperly manufactured from live ammunition.
During test firing, a bullet tip became lodged in the handgun barrel. That tip was later fired at Brandon, who wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest, from less than twenty feet away, and struck him in the abdomen.
The actor was rushed to the hospital, where he died following six hours of emergency surgery. No criminal charges were ultimately brought against the production. The Crow was later completed with Brandon’s stunt double serving as a stand-in for his remaining scenes. But his tragic on-set death has remained a Hollywood cautionary tale about gun safety for almost three decades.
Brandon’s sister, Shannon Lee, has also issued a statement about Hutchins’ death and Souza’s injuries through her brother’s official Twitter account. “Our hearts go out the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident of on Rust,” she wrote. “No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.”
Another accidental gun shooting occurred in 1984, when actor John-Eric Hexum was playing with a gun on the set of the action-adventure television series, Cover Up: Golden Opportunity. He died after putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger.