The tragedy on the set of ‘Midnight Rider’ that saw a crewmember hit by a train
There’s no production that can guarantee an accident-free work environment, given that unavoidable mishaps happen all the time, but several prominent members of the Midnight Rider crew ended up in court following a tragedy entirely of their own making.
Announced in May 2013, Academy Award winner William Hurt took top billing as Gregg Allman in the biographical drama adapted from the musician’s autobiography My Cross to Bear, with Tyson Ritter playing the younger version of the wayward rockstar.
The supporting cast included a number of rising stars and recognisable faces, including Wyatt Russell, Eliza Dushku, Zoey Deutch, Bradley Whitford, and Aldis Hodge, but the film was abandoned entirely after just one day of shooting when camera assistant Sarah Jones was hit by a train and killed.
Under the instruction of director Randall Miller, the crew began setting up for a dream sequence that would involve Hurt being strapped to a hospital bed on a railroad trestle, which is one of the very few captured images from Midnight Rider that exist. However, even though the team had been granted permission to film on property owned by a mill operator, there were no permits in place for shooting on active train lines.
The production schedule wasn’t set to begin until February 24th, 2014, but Randall had decided that the “camera tests” being carried out that day be extended into a full scene with the leading man of the movie present and accounted for, even though there was only a small skeleton crew in place.
In the middle of a setup, a freight train came around a corner to indicate the cast and crew had a matter of seconds to get to safety, with the only means of escape heading directly towards it before fleeing the tracks. The hospital bed Hurt was filming on was still secured to the tracks, and on impact with the train, shrapnel and debris went hurtling towards those who remained within its vicinity.
Jones was killed instantly, while Hurt had to extricate himself from the bed and run barefoot off the tracks with just moments to spare. Despite one of their colleagues dying right in front of them, the producers tried to restart production, only to be met with fierce opposition from many of the names involved, including Hurt and Allman.
Following an investigation, Randall – along with producers Jay Sedrish and Jody Savin, as well as first assistant director Hillary Schwartz – faced charges of involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespass. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the director was sentenced to ten years, spending one behind bars and a further nine on probation. The charges against Savin were dropped after Randall – her husband – pled guilty as part of a plea agreement, while Sedrish and Schwartz received ten years of probation.
