A terrible tragedy unfolded on the sets of the movie Rust on Thursday, October, 21, when a prop gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin during rehearsals at the Bonanza Creek Ranch killed cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins. The unfortunate incident seized a lot of attention over the week with extensive media scrutiny over 'who' was responsible for Hutchins' accidental death. The head electrician on the film set, Serge Svetnoy, in a Facebook post described the mortifying moment when Hutchins took her last breath.
Serge Svetnoy was standing next to Halyna Hutchins when she was fatally shot during the rehearsals. According to Svetnoy, after she was shot, Hutchins stumbled back before collapsing in his arms. Svetnoy described the pain of holding a dying Hutchins in her arms in his post. Svetnoy and Hutchins were friends and had worked on a number of films previously.
Halyna Hutchins' last words
"I can't feel my legs," Hutchins said after collapsing in Svetnoy's arms. "I was holding her in my arms while she was dying. Her blood was on my hands," he wrote. Svetnoy blamed 'negligence and unprofessionalism' for Hutchins' death and lashed out at people for not doing their jobs properly." 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, " he wrote.
Svetnoy even went on to claim that the producers of the movie hired an inexperienced armorer. Svetnoy, in his post, wished that "no one should go through what Alec Baldwin went through." "He has to live with the thought that he took the life of the human because of unprofessional people, " he wrote.
'The person who loaded Baldwin's pistol was too young to be doing her job'
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 24, was named as the person who loaded Baldwin's vintage Colt pistol. According to a call sheet obtained by the Daily Mail, she was the film's assistant prop master and armorer, overseen by prop master Sarah Zachry. Svetnoy alleged that Gutierrez-Reed was 'too young to be doing her job'.
"There is no way a twenty-four-year-old woman can be a professional with armory; there is no way that her more-or-less the same-aged friend from school, neighborhood, Instagram, or God knows where else, can be a professional in this field, " he wrote. Svetnoy then urged the producers to make sure such an accident is never repeated, by hiring qualified staff who know their way around on potentially dangerous sets.