Posted on 07/15/2017 10:15:22 AM PDT by eastforker
The following is an excerpt from an article about Brandon Lee's death that was ruled an accident. Please read and tell me if you think this actually happened. I for one have a herd time believing this could happen.
Death[edit] Lee died of a gunshot wound on March 31, 1993, at the filming studio in Wilmington, North Carolina, at the age of 28, after an accidental shooting on set of The Crow.[9]
In the scene in which Lee was accidentally shot, Lee's character walks into his apartment and discovers his fiancée being beaten and raped by thugs. Actor Michael Massee's character fires a .44 Magnum revolver at Lee as he walks into the room.[10] A previous scene using the same gun had called for inert dummy cartridges fitted with bullets (but no powder or primer) to be loaded in the revolver for a close-up scene; for film scenes which utilize a revolver (where the bullets are visible from the front) and do not require the gun to actually be fired, dummy cartridges provide the realistic appearance of actual rounds. Instead of purchasing commercial dummy cartridges, the film's prop crew created their own by pulling the bullets from live rounds, dumping the powder charge then reinserting the bullets. However, they unknowingly or unintentionally left the live primer in place at the rear of the cartridge. At some point during filming, the revolver was apparently discharged with one of these improperly-deactivated cartridges in the chamber, setting off the primer with enough force to drive the bullet partway into the barrel, where it became stuck (a condition known as a squib load). The prop crew either failed to notice this or failed to recognize the significance of this issue.
In the fatal scene, which called for the revolver to be actually fired at Lee from a distance of 3.6–4.5 meters (12–15 feet), the dummy cartridges were exchanged with blank rounds, which feature a live powder charge and primer, but no bullet, thus allowing the gun to be fired without the risk of an actual projectile. But since the bullet from the dummy round was already trapped in the barrel, this caused the .44 Magnum bullet to be fired out of the barrel with virtually the same force as if the gun had been loaded with a live round, and it struck Lee in the abdomen, mortally wounding him.[11] He was rushed to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he underwent 6 hours of surgery. However, attempts to save him were unsuccessful, and Lee was pronounced dead at 1:03 p.m. EST. The shooting was ruled an accident.
I am amazed that they used a real gun.
The way investigators would find out would seem to be to replicate the circumstances. Maybe some of those on FR who are familiar with firearms capabilities could answer.
I’m more surprised the pistol didn’t explode or have other severe damage in that situation. Blank powder and propellant powder are two different animals...as is periodically discovered by somebody that erroneously uses blank powder to reload live ammunition.
Brandon Lee's death was an accident. The investigation was very thorough. An incredible sequence of events had to occur which led to Brandon's death, but it was an accident, and I believe procedures for handling firearms on movie sets were changed—or at least "tightened up"—as a result of the tragedy.
Sigh.
I hit “Post Reply”, but in the time the FR servers have taken to respond, I’ve forgotten what I was going to write.
What did you expect them to use?
So it’s not just me? Pretty frustrating.
> What did you expect them to use? <
A realistic fake gun. One that can go boom, but absolutely cannot fire any projectiles.
It was just a horrible accident. It was a collection of bad circumstances all coming together at the same time.
Thank you.
You would have to custom make such a thing, and it would likely cost more than just an ordinary gun.
This was so sad. Always shocking. Of course you had the Twilight Zone movie disaster with Vic Morrow and now on the Walking Dead they just lost a stuntman.
Primer only load can in fact lodge a bullet in the barrel. I did it once. Thankfully the RO noticed and put his hand between the hammer and the frame before my next shot.
If you’re lucky, the bullet lodges halfway into the forcing cone and the cylinder won’t rotate again. Did that, too. I was lucky both times.
That’s not how it works. Guns are just hunks of mechanical metal. What matters is what’s loaded. Live rounds or blank rounds or, apparently, lazy prop people who just turn live rounds into non-firing rounds but still have functional primers.
I can’t believe no one did a barrel check when changing out loads. Gun Safety 101...
What a terrible tragedy for a lot of reasons.
Brandon was definitely going to be a superstar. He was an excellent martial artist and a much better actor than his father. His fight scenes are definitely for the aficionado.
Since the prop people apparently weren't too professional and were cutting corners perhaps they used propellant powder in their blanks.
A civil suit by Lee's widow was settled quickly. The suit alleged that members of the crew ran out of dummy bullets and improperly manufactured their own from live ammunition instead of waiting a day to buy them from a licensed firearms dealer. The crew was said to lack "proper training, proper equipment and the required federal firearms license" and that it was a violation of industry standards to have live ammunition on a movie set.
Supposedly, during a test firing of the contrived dummy ammunition, a bullet tip wound up in the barrel of the handgun that was later used in the scene resulting in Lee's death. The complaint alleged that from a distance of 20 feet, the tip "was hurled from the barrel of the handgun and struck Brandon Lee in the abdomen with great force and violence, creating an entry wound approximately the size of a silver dollar." The gun was not previously inspected by the property masters responsible for making sure it was safe.
This account, if true, points toward gross negligence in that dummy bullets should not be able to be fired at all. The very idea of test-firing a dummy bullet suggests that the people handling the guns and ammunition were dangerously ignorant and careless.
Additional information would reside in the extensive OSHA investigation file. I do not know if it has been reported on, but a copy should be available under the Freedom of Information Act.
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