The Walking Dead just got hit with a wrongful death lawsuit that is frankly kind of amazing since it’s been a while since the unfortunate passing of stuntman John Bernecker. After taking a fall from about 22 feet up Bernecker passed away from his injuries on July 12th of 2017. John was a very well-liked part of the crew and had an impressive resume behind him that included TV shows and movies. He was perhaps one of the more well-known stuntmen in the business and his loss was a hard hit to the cast and crew of the show as well as anyone that had ever worked with him.
Susan Bernecker, John’s mother, has apparently just now filed a wrongful death lawsuit that is aimed at AMC’s hit show The Walking Dead, which John passed away while working on. She’s claiming that the work environment was entirely unsafe and that AMC put pressure on the production company to keep the budget so low that adequate safety measures couldn’t be accounted for. Heartless as it might sound John was a stuntman and knew the risks of his job. The fact that his mother is coming forth now is a bit shady when many family members, even after taking time to grieve and cool off from what might be a disaster in the making, would hopefully see that while he loved what he was doing and what it helped to accomplish, he didn’t have a risk-free job and knew very well that any one stunt could cause him harm. He didn’t deserve to go the way he went, but it is the role of a stuntperson to take the risks for the job that others will not.
Right not the wrongful death lawsuit seems more like the effort of a grieving mother to lash out at those she believes are responsible for her son’s unfortunate demise rather than accept he fact of what he did. To date there have been very few accidents such as this on the set of The Walking Dead, and John’s passing is unfortunately the worst accident on record to date. More so, the accident seems to have been more of a true accident than anything that might have been safety related. According to sources that were on set at the time Bernecker was suppose to fall from the rooftop onto a safe surface that would cushion the fall. He’d dropped from greater heights than 22 feet in his career and this should have been nothing for him. But upon starting the fall he failed to get the separation he needed from the building and attempted to stop his fall, but was unable to do so and fell just inches shy of the mat, landing on his head and neck.
This horrible accident is something that people are still looking into, but honestly I get the feeling that it was a freak accident and as heartless as it might seem it is the life of a stuntman, not a malicious act that requires a lawsuit.
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