Moments after a shot went off on the set of “Rust” that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, a crew member could be heard in a 911 dispatch call released Friday frantically saying, “We were rehearsing and it went off!”
The Albuquerque Journal on Friday published details of the frenzied 911 call, in which a woman who identified herself as a script supervisor told the dispatch operator, “we’ve had two people accidentally shot by a prop gun; we need help immediately.”
The dispatcher then asked if the gun was “loaded with a real bullet,” at which point the woman said the film’s assistant director was responsible for checking the guns.
“I don’t… I can’t tell you that… And this (expletive) AD that yelled at me at lunch – asking about revisions, this mother (expletive) – he’s supposed to check the guns, he’s responsible for what happens on the set,” the woman said in the call. “We were rehearsing and it went off and I ran out, we all ran out.”
The Santa Fe Regional Emergency Communication Center did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for a copy of the recordings.
The tragic accident occurred on Thursday in which “Rust” star and producer Alec Baldwin was holding the prop gun that discharged and hit cinematographer Hutchins and the film’s director Joel Souza. According to law enforcement statements, Hutchins was shot around 1:50 p.m. Thursday local time and died of her injuries after she was airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. The shot also injured director Joel Souza, who was released from the hospital on Friday.
On Friday afternoon, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s department said via The New York Times that the investigation is “active and ongoing” and that witnesses were still being interviewed. The representative also said that Baldwin had been interviewed and had been willingly cooperating with the investigation. However, authorities were still not able to identify the type of gun or projectile that was used in the incident.
Earlier on Friday it was reported that several members of the film’s camera team left the production in reference to what one crew member called “absolute dog s—” working conditions and that they were replaced with non-union members, all hours before the accident occurred. The LA Times also reported that a crew member had previously texted the production manager about three on-set “accidental discharges,” calling it “super unsafe.”