““There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours.””
Alec Baldwin has broken his silence following a tragic prop gun accident on set that killed the cinematographer and injured the director.
Baldwin’s spokesperson previously confirmed that there was an accident involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks on the set of “Rust,” a Western the actor was shooting in New Mexico. Both director Joel Souza and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins were shot, and Hutchins, 42, was pronounced dead after being airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital. Souza, 48, was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center by ambulance, and has since been released after receiving treatment.
“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred,” Baldwin, 63, wrote in a two-part thread posted to both his Instagram account and the Hilaria and Alec Baldwin Foundation’s official Twitter account.
“I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family,” he continued. “My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”
Baldwin and Hutchins’ names have been topping the trending Twitter topics in the U.S. since news of the shooting broke Thursday night.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reported Baldwin was seen Thursday outside the sheriff’s office in tears. Production has been halted on the film.
Prop guns fire blanks, gunpowder charges that produce a flash and a bang but not a hard projectile, the Associated Press notes, but when the trigger is pulled, the paper or plastic wadding is ejected from the barrel with enough force that it can be lethal at close range.
And there have been fatal prop gun accidents on sets before. “The Crow” star Brandon Lee was killed in 1993 after a bullet was left in a prop gun, for example. And in 1984, actor Jon-Erik Hexum died after shooting himself in the head with a prop gun blank while pretending to play Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum on the set of the television series “Cover Up.”
