Serge Svetnoy, who held Halyna Hutchins as she died from a gunshot wound on the set of the movie “Rust,” last week filed the first lawsuit related to the tragic event.
Svetnoy was next to Hutchins, the movie’s cinematographer, when she was accidentally shot by actor and producer Alec Baldwin on the set outside Santa Fe last month. Svetnoy said at a press conference that he is filing suit to prevent these types of incidents from occurring again, KRQE reported.
“He held her in his arms, blood on his hands while she laid dying on the set, waiting for help,” Gary Dordick, an attorney representing Svetnoy, said. “Serge Svetnoy knows better than anyone that that senseless tragedy could have and should have been avoided.”
Svetnoy served as the chief lighting technician and had worked on previous films with Hutchins. He said he was standing so close to her at the time of the shooting, he was hit in the face with bullet fragments.
“I still cannot believe that she’s no longer with us,” Svetnoy said during the press conference.
Svetnoy is suing the production company and several others involved in the production, including armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed who was in charge of the weapons on set, and Baldwin, a producer and actor on the film.
“These producers and production companies, mega-millionaires, need to put the safety of people before profits,” Dordick said. “This lawsuit is to make these kinds of unsafe conditions that have happened too much on movie sets, stop now.”
Dordick called Baldwin’s actions reckless, no matter who was responsible for the set’s weapons.
“Alec Baldwin was sued for punitive damages because when a gun, a real gun, was given to him on the set, he assumed it was safe. He took a gun, loaded with a bullet, pointed it at human beings and pulled the trigger, and shot the bullet that killed people and seriously injured others. That conduct is reckless,” Dordick said at the press conference. “He did not see the first-hand recreational shooting but he saw first-hand weapons being left lying around, unattended, in the dirt, and left unsupervised.”
Though the lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles where many of the defendants live, attorneys could seek jurisdiction in New Mexico. A dollar amount was not listed in the lawsuit.
“I did not blame and still do not blame just a person,” said Svetnoy. “Especially, no one person.”
