Re: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

In article <jspb54drpu306piob682g98on80kjmibsb@xxxxxxx>,
mike weber <fairportfan@xxxxxxxxx> said:

Brandon Lee was killed by a blank cartridge.

I believe it was more complicated than that (unlike the death of
actor Jon-Erik Hexum, which _was_ caused solely by a blank round).

The summary at Lee's Wikipedia entry pretty much matches other
accounts I've read:

Because the movie's second unit team was running behind
schedule, it was decided that dummy cartridges (cartridges that
outwardly appear to be functional, but contain no gunpowder)
would be made from real cartridges.

[I understand that they needed dummy rounds for a shot of the
revolver's open cylinder, showing that it was fully loaded. I
_presume_ that the scene called for the actor to then close the
cylinder and brandish the gun dangerously, ergo the preference for
dummy rather than live rounds.]

A cartridge with only a
primer and a bullet was fired in the pistol prior to [the scene
in which Lee's character was to be shot]. It caused a squib
load, in which the primer provided enough force to push the
bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel of the revolver,
where it became stuck.

The malfunction went unnoticed by the crew, and the same gun
was used again later to shoot the death scene, having been
re-loaded with blanks. Nevertheless, the squib load was still
lodged in the barrel, and was propelled by the blank
cartridge's explosion out of the barrel and into Lee's body.
Although the bullet was traveling much more slowly than a
normally fired bullet would be, the bullet's large size and the
extremely short firing distance made it powerful enough to
fatally wound Lee.

--
William December Starr <wdstarr@xxxxxxxxx>
.

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