The mother of John Bernecker, the stuntman who died on the set of The Walking Dead last July, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in which she accuses AMC of being so stingy with money that they forced the show and its production company, Stalwart Films, to cut corners on safety measures.
"The production of season 8 of The Walking Dead, like seasons before it, had an emphasis on keeping production budgets low and profits high. Specifically, AMC...put pressure on the production services company, Stalwart Films, to produce episodes of The Walking Dead as cheaply as possible...
The Stalwart Film defendants’ numerous failures to take reasonable safety precautions were the direct result of the policies, pressure, and decisions from the AMC Defendants to produce The Walking Dead for minimum cost and maximum profit", the suit alleges.
She is also suing actor Austin Amelio, who plays Dwight on the show and was filming a scene with Bernecker at the time of the accident. The suit alleges that Amelio was instructed not to touch Bernecker before he took the 22-foot stunt fall off of a balcony, but that Amelio, "an untrained and inexperienced actor", grabbed Bernecker's shirt and "pushed" him, changing the trajectory of the fall.
Bernecker missed a landing pad by inches. The suit states that the stunt was never rehearsed and that there were no air bags, just a pad on top of cardboard boxes, and the pad did not extend under the balcony. It also says that there were no "spotters" around the pad to correct Bernecker's trajectory, and that a box he stood on to give himself lift before the fall had not been secured. It also alleges that there was no medical transport standing by, and so it took over half an hour for Bernecker to be transported to the hospital. The suit calls all of this "contrary to industry standards".
Other defendants named in the suit include executive producer Tom Luse, the director and two assistant directors of the episode, and the stunt coordinator.
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