Michael Bay is currently filming the latest installment in the Transformers franchise on the streets of Chicago. We have seen some very cool behind the scenes videos of some of the human and vehicle stunts being performed for Transformers 3. Sadly, accidents can always happen on the set and this film is no exception.
ABC News Chicago is reporting that a 24-year-old extra was seriously injured on the Transformers 3 set in East Chicago, Indiana (on the border of Illinois and Indiana) this past Wednesday night.
“Preliminary investigation revealed that shortly before 7 p.m, the movie crew was filming a stunt using numerous vehicles and drivers,” authorities said in a statement. “During this stunt, an object struck a 2006 Toyota, hitting the vehicle, and then went through the windshield hitting the driver.”
Her car in turn plowed into a median barrier wall and continued on about a mile before coming to a halt.
A local ABC affiliate identified the victim as 24-year-old Gabriela Cedillo and quoted a fellow extra as saying she had been injured by a tow cable that came loose.
“The vehicle was being towed by another vehicle,” extra Blaine Baker told the station. “The cable between the two vehicles broke. It whipped around and sliced through the woman’s car and sliced through her skull, apparently.”
The equipment pertaining to the stunt was impounded by the Indiana State Police. The victim was airlifted to a local hospital and is currently in critical condition.
[Update]
Nikki Finke from Deadline received a statement from Paramount about the incident. Check out what she reported below.
Paramount just weighed in with me to say that the injured extra was not involved in the stunt, that her car was not involved in the stunt, that a “freak accident caused her injury”, that she and her car were more than 500 feet from the stunt, that she was struck by a flying metal object whose welding had come apart and not by a steel towing cable, that the stunt from Tuesday had to be repeated Wednesday because of a “timing issue” and not because it had failed, and that “nobody has done movies more safely than Michael Bay”. The studio, however, could not explain why its version of events was so at odds with the local police and media reports. “We feel horrible that anyone was injured and will take all appropriate action,” a Paramount exec told me.
[Update 2]
MyFoxChicago reports that Cedillo is in a medically induced coma recovering from brain surgery at Loyola Medical Center. The film production released a statement that read, “Our thoughts and prayers are with Gabriela, her family and loved ones. We are looking into what caused the accident.”
Transformers 3 is slated to hit theaters on July 1st, 2011 and stars Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, Ken Jeong, Patrick Dempsey and Alan Tudyk.
