Serge Svetnoy, the chief electrician on the set of the Hollywood movie Rust, has recalled the moment when Halyna Hutchins’ died in his arms in a heartbreaking Facebook post.
On October 21, Hutchins, who worked as the cinematographer for the movie passed away after actor Alec Baldwin accidentally fired a ‘prop gun’ he believed was safe to use.
According to reports, Baldwin had been practicing his cross-draw at the time of the incident, and the shot also wounded director Joel Souza.
The production of the movie has been paused but not canceled, with a pending full investigation into Hutchins’ death, Unilad reports.
Days after the incident, more details have emerged regarding the moments before the gun was fired, including Svetnoy’s story.
In a lengthy Facebook post, Svetnoy discussed knowing Hutchins for years before they started working together for Rust.
“I worked with her on almost all of her films,” Svetnoy wrote. “Sometimes we’ve shared food and water. We’ve been burning under the sun, freezing in the snow on the shoots.”
“We took care of each other,” he added. “Yes, I can say with 100% confidence she was my friend.”
Svetnoy said that after many inquiries from the media in multiple countries asking what exactly had happened, he recalled that he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hutchins during the fatal shot that took her life and injured Joel Souza.
“I was holding her in my arms while she was dying,” Svetnoy wrote. “Her blood was on my hands.”
Svetnoy then added that Hutchin’s death was the ‘fault of negligence and unprofessionalism.’
“The negligence from the person who was supposed to check the weapon on the site did not do this; the person who had to announce that the loaded gun was on the site did not do this; the person who should have checked this weapon before bringing it to the set did not do it, and the DEATH OF THE HUMAN IS THE RESULT!”
Moreover, Svetnoy also criticized the decision to hire Hannah Gutierrez-Reed as the armorer for the set.
“There is no way a twenty-four-year-old woman can be a professional with armory… professionals are the people who have spent years on sets, people who know this job from A to Z,” Svetnoy wrote.
“Dear Producers, by hiring professionals, you are buying peace of mind for yourself and the people around you,” he wrote. “It is true that the professionals can cost a little more and sometimes can be a little bit more demanding, but it is worth it. No saved penny is worth the LIFE of the person!”
Meanwhile, a petition encouraging Baldwin to ‘use his power and influence in the Hollywood film industry’ to ban the use of real firearms on movie sets has reached nearly 45,000 signatures.
“We need to make sure that this avoidable tragedy never happens again,” the petition reads. “There is no excuse for something like this to happen in the 21st century. Real guns are no longer needed on film production sets.”
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