In the history of film and television, accidents have occurred during shooting, such as cast or crew fatalities or serious accidents that plagued production. From 1980 to 1990, there were 37 deaths relating to accidents during stunts; 24 of these deaths involved the use of helicopters.

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A few facts...

The Ten Commandments (1956)
Cecil B DeMille overcame a minor heart attack while climbing down by ladder from the top of the Egyptian city gate set during filming the "take three" of the Exodus sequence. In another incident, during filming of a sand-storm scene, an extra carrying a flaming torch tripped over and the torch set fire to the clothing of a young girl standing next to him. The girl only suffered minor burns thanks to the quick thinking of make-up artist Frank Westmore who raced over and tore off her burning costume. During the filming of the same scene, several Egyptian extras were bitten by scorpions and a cobra which had been blown out of their burrows in the sand by the artificially generated storm.

Varan the Unbelievable (1958)
Minor injuries, exhaustion and dehydration are common hazards for suit actors of the kaiju genre, but during the filming of 'Varan' suit actor Haruo Nakajima (who also portrayed Godzilla for 18 years) was severely burned due to a pyrotechnics mishap. This was the only time in his career that his injuries forced him to be replaced for the remainder of the shoot.

Ben-Hur (1959)
Joe Canutt, who was Charlton Heston's stunt double, sustained a gash on his chin after being flipped out of his chariot during a chariot race scene.

Spartacus (1960)
Actor Charles McGraw suffered a broken jaw on the set of the Roman epic. During the revolt at the Gladiator school, Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is seen forcing the head of evil trainer Marcellus (McGraw) into a cauldron of soup, drowning him. McGraw's jaw struck the rim of the pot, sustaining a fracture but he managed to continue the scene nonetheless.

Shark! (1969)
A stuntman was mauled to death on camera when a shark, which was supposed to have been sedated, suddenly attacked.

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
During aerial rehearsals prior to shooting in Oahu, Hawaii, a Vultee BT-13, modified to resemble a Japanese Val dive-bomber, crashed in a sugar-cane field in Ewa, killing pilot Guy Thomas Strong.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)
During the film's pivotal brainwashing scene, Malcolm McDowell suffered a scratched cornea and temporary blindness from having his eyes propped open for so long. McDowell also suffered a broken rib in the scene in which an actor taunts and attacks him to demonstrate his rehabilitation.

Enter the Dragon (1972)
During a fight-scene, Robert Wall accidentally slashed Bruce Lee in the arm with a broken bottle. After the wound healed, Lee legitimately kicked Wall during the re-shoot with such force that an extra broke his arm trying to catch Wall.

The Godfather (1972)
Gianni Russo broke two ribs and cracked his elbow after James Caan threw him over a fence and slammed a garbage can on him during a fight scene.

The Exorcist (1973)
Linda Blair suffered a spinal fracture due to a mechanical failure while filming a scene where her character Regan MacNeil levitates and thrashes violently. The fracture later developed into scoliosis years later after Blair reinjured her back during a motorcycle scene in another film. In addition, actress Ellen Burstyn seriously injured her back while filming a scene where she falls over backwards after her possessed daughter backhands her. The scene was left in the film.

A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Stuntman Alf Joint was seriously injured while performing a stunt in which he jumped off a roof. Joint said of the experience that he felt he was being "pushed." In addition, special effects director John Richardson and his assistant Liz Moore were involved in a car crash which killed Moore. Both the crash and Joint's injury are alleged to have been attributed by the "curse" of the 1976 film The Omen, which Joint and Richardson also participated in.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
While filming a scene of his character running, Donald Sutherland was struck by a car.

Apocalypse Now (1979)
In the film's opening scene, Martin Sheen cut his hand after smashing a mirror; he was too drunk to realize that his hand was streaming in blood. During filming on 5 March 1977, Sheen suffered a heart attack. He returned to the set six weeks later.

Charlie's Angels (1979)
Julie Ann Johnson and Jeannie Coultar were severely injured on 3 Jan. 1979. The episode Angels in a Box was being filmed on location at Indian Dunes that day at a dirt airfield near Magic Mountain. Stuntman Bobby Bass was high on cocaine and drove a car that the stuntwomen were supposed to jump out of, faster than instructed. Jeannie had multiple injuries including a concussion. Julie was injured far worse. Though knocked out, Julie was writhing on the ground. Stunt Coordinator Ronnie Rondell had to pin her down to stop the chance of her further injuring herself.

The Dukes of Hazzard (1980)
Assistant cameraman Rodney Mitchell was killed and eight other crew members were injured when their camera truck flipped while rehearsing a chase scene.

The Cannonball Run (1981)
Stuntwoman Heidi von Beltz was left a paraplegic after being thrown from her car during a crash.

Roar (1981)
A film about a wildlife preservationist whose family came to visit him only to be met with his co-habitats, his vast collection of wild animals, which unfortunately attacked the film crew and actors who had to work alongside with, leaving over 70 of them injured on set including cinematographer Jan de Bont, who had his scalp lifted by a lion, resulting in 220 stitches. Lead actress Tippi Hedren fractured her leg and also had scalp wounds after being bucked off by an elephant while she was riding it in addition to being also bitten in the neck by a lion and required 38 stitches. Melanie Griffith (Hedren's daughter) was also attacked, receiving 50 stitches to her face. Because of the injuries on set, crew turnover was high as many never returned to the set. John Marshall was bitten by one of the lions and required 56 stitches.
ROAR (1981) The Making of ROAR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRGMOLyYKUA
ROAR (1981) - The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zv_DANqCIQ

The Sword and the Sorcerer (1981)
Stuntman Jack Tyree was killed while doing a high-fall stunt at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. While performing a 78-foot (24 m) fall in heavy costume and makeup, Tyree struck his airbag off center, resulting in a fatal impact.

First Blood (1982)
Sylvester Stallone suffered numerous serious injuries during filming. For example, in the scene where John Rambo escapes being pursued from Deputy Art Galt (Jack Starrett) by jumping off a cliff and into a mass of tree branches. Stallone performed the stunt himself and broke several ribs after filming the scene three times. He suffered bruises to his back after filming 19 takes of the jail scene where Galt clubbed Rambo with a nightstick. Also, while filming for the scene where Rambo first runs into the abandoned mine shaft to elude the guards firing at him, Stallone seriously injured his hand after failing to realize that his hand was on the top of a gunfire squib that went off after. The injury was so severe that Stallone almost lost his thumb. After performing for a stunt in a deleted scene, the stunt driver for Brian Dennehy, Bennie E. Dobbins, suffered a lumbar compression fracture. Dobbins would later pass away from a heart attack in 1988 while filming Red Heat.

The Right Stuff (1983)
Stuntman Joseph Leonard Svec died while performing a parachute jump that recreated Chuck Yeager's escape from a stalling NF-104. In real life, Yeager's flight helmet had caught fire on colliding with the ejection seat's heated exhaust in mid-air. Svec carried a smoke canister during his freefall to simulate such fire. However, this may have intoxicated the stuntman, causing him to lose consciousness. He failed to open his parachute and fell to his death.

Top Gun (1986)
On 16 September 1985, aerobatic pilot Art Scholl crashed his Pitts S-2 camera-plane off the southern Californian coast near Carlsbad and neither was recovered.

Red Heat (1988)
Stuntman and director Bennie Dobbins suffered a fatal heart attack while filming a fight scene in freezing conditions outdoors in Austria. The scene required Arnold Schwarzenegger and another actor to fight near-naked in deep snow. Dobbins over-exerted himself trying to install fan heaters in the snow to prevent the actors suffering hypothermia.

The Abyss (1989)
Actor Ed Harris almost drowned during an underwater sequence. Despite him yelling "Cut" when he ran out of air, the production crew didn’t give him oxygen until he passed out. The trauma caused him to break down in his car on the way home. He is also alleged to have punched director James Cameron in the face following the incident.

Bikini Island (1991)
Stuntman Jay C. Currin was killed on the first day of filming when a stunt fall off a 55-foot (17 m) cliff went wrong and he landed on some rocks instead of the airbag that had been placed to break his fall.

The Bodyguard (1992)
A worker died when he was crushed between two lighting-equipment cranes during filming.

The Crow (1994)
On 31 March 1993, American actor and martial artist Brandon Lee was accidentally shot and killed in North Carolina with a .44 magnum gun that was intended to fire blanks but contained a fragment left behind after a dummy round had been inserted and removed. Also, on 1 February 1993 on the opening day of filming, a carpenter was severely shocked and burned when his scissor lift struck power lines.

Seven (1995)
In a scene where Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) chased John Doe in the rain, Pitt fell and his arm went through a car windscreen, requiring surgery. This accident was written into the script to explain Pitt wearing a cast over his arm. Coincidentally, the original script did call for Pitt's character to be injured during this sequence but not to his hand.

Titanic (1997)
Several extras were injured during the film's climactic sinking scene where passengers fell and hit parts of the ship. Injuries ranged from a broken ankle to cracked ribs, a fractured cheekbone, and a ruptured spleen. Kate Winslet suffered pneumonia from filming the water scenes after she refused to wear a wetsuit under her dress. During the scene where Jack and Rose were running away from an ocean wave in the hallways, Winslet's coat snagged on a gate, pulling her down and nearly drowning her. On the final night of shooting in Nova Scotia, 80 cast and crew members were hospitalized after pranksters spiked the clam chowder at the catering area with PCP.

The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (1998)
A special-effects explosion went wrong during filming on 15 August 1998, when stuntman Marc Akerstream was struck on the head and killed by flying debris.

Dinosaur (2000)
A crew member was killed and another seriously wounded when a camera boom struck a cross-country power line.

XXX (2002)
Vin Diesel's stunt double, Harry L. O'Connor, was killed during filming, in a scene in which he was supposed to rappel down a parasailing line and land on a submarine. He instead struck a bridge at high speed and was killed instantly.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)
In playing the role of Jesus Christ, Jim Caviezel sustained gashes to his back from multiple whippings, hypothermia, and a separated shoulder from carrying a giant cross. He was also struck by lightning before filming the Sermon of the Mount scene.

Troy (2004)
Brad Pitt, who played Achilles in the film, tore his left Achilles tendon during production. George Camilleri, a bodybuilding extra, broke his leg while filming an action sequence at Għajn Tuffieħa. He was operated on the following day but suffered complications and died two weeks later.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Bruce Willis was injured during a fight scene when he was kicked above his right eye by Maggie Q's stunt double, who was wearing stiletto heels. Willis was hospitalized and received seven stitches that ran through his right eyebrow and down into the corner of his eye. Willis' stunt double Larry Rippenkroeger was knocked unconscious when he fell 25 feet (7.6 m) from a fire escape to the pavement. Rippenkroeger suffered broken bones in his face, several broken ribs, a punctured lung, and fractures in both wrists. Due to his injuries, production was temporarily shut down. Willis personally paid the hotel bills for Rippenkroeger's parents and visited him a number of times at the hospital.

The Dark Knight (2008)
Cameraman Conway Wickliffe was killed in 2007 on the set of The Dark Knight, as he rode in a pickup truck driving parallel to a stunt car; the pickup missed a 90-degree turn and crashed into a tree.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
During an explosion-effects misfire, Sienna Miller's suit caught fire, igniting the area between her breasts.

The Tournament (2009)
In a botched attempt to turn over a semi-trailer truck with an air cannon for a chase scene, a piece of iron debris flew toward the production crew and hit assistant director Shero Rauf. Rauf broke both legs in that accident; he took almost two years to walk normally again.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010/2011)
During production at Leavesden, Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double David Holmes suffered a serious spinal injury during the filming of an aerial sequence, which left him a tetraplegic. Holmes fell to the ground following an explosion that was part of the stunt.

The Hobbit (2012–2014)
As many as 27 animals were killed during the production of this film, mainly from the hazardous conditions of the farm they were housed in. Several goats and sheep fell into a sinkhole under the farm. One horse was hobbled and left on the ground for three hours. Another horse was killed after falling off an embankment of an overcrowded paddock. One horse had the skin and muscles of her leg torn off by wire fencing. Several chickens were mauled to death by unsupervised dogs or trampled by larger animals. This led to a global protest against the film by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The Lone Ranger (2013)
Crew member Michael Bridger drowned while cleaning a 24-foot-deep (7.3 m) water tank to be used in the film's underwater scene.

Midnight Rider: The Gregg Allman Story (2014, unfinished)
Second camera assistant Sarah Jones was struck and killed by a freight train, and several crew members were injured, on 20 February 2014 when they attempted to shoot a scene with a hospital bed on an active railroad trestle at a location outside of Savannah, Georgia. The railroad company responsible for the tracks has claimed that the production crew did not have permission to film there. As a consequence, the Safety for Sarah movement was launched to campaign and demand for increased safety in future film productions.

Shooter (2016)
On 6 July 2016, while filming a scene at Agua Dulce Airpark, actor Tom Sizemore accidentally ran over a stuntman. Sizemore was supposed to enter the Cadillac Escalade and stay there until the scene ended. The stunt coordinator told him not to pull out, but he did so regardless, not realizing that the stuntman was behind him.

The Fate of the Furious (2017)
During principal photography in Mývatn, Iceland, on 14 March 2016, strong winds sent a plastic iceberg prop flying into a paddock and striking two horses. One was wounded and the other mortally injured; it was later euthanized.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017)
Stunt double Olivia Jackson was severely injured in a motorcycle accident on set in South Africa in September 2015, leaving her in a medically-induced coma for two weeks. During a high-speed motorcycle chase, she collided with a camera arm. Among Jackson's injuries were cerebral trauma, a crushed and degloved face, a severed artery in her neck, a paralyzed arm, several broken ribs, a shattered scapula, a broken clavicle, torn fingers with a thumb that needed to be amputated, and five nerves torn out of her spinal cord. Her paralyzed left arm was amputated in June 2016. Days after Jackson's accident, crew member Ricardo Cornelius was crushed to death by a Hummer H1 that slid off a platform he was operating.

Deadpool 2 (2018)
On 14 August 2017, stuntwoman Joi "SJ" Harris was killed during filming after losing control of a motorcycle while turning a corner and crashing through a glass window.

The Walking Dead (2017)
On 13 July 2017, stuntman John Bernecker suffered a head injury after falling more than 20 feet off a balcony onto a concrete floor while filming a stunt for the show. He died the following day. In October 2019, a judge ruled against AMC Networks, which attempted to deny responsibility for Bernecker's death after his family sued the network in January 2018.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)
Sound mixer James Emswiller suffered a heart attack and fell from an apartment-building balcony during filming in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, on 11 October 2018. He died in hospital an hour after the incident.

No Time to Die (2020)
Daniel Craig sustained an ankle injury while filming in Jamaica and subsequently underwent minor surgery. In a separate filming accident, a controlled explosion caused exterior damage to the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios and left a crew member with minor injuries.

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