A subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company pleaded guilty to failing to protect its employees after actor Harrison Ford suffered a broken leg when pummeled by high-tech scenery in 2014 on the set of “Star Wars.”
Ford, who is often known to be blunt, was not too pleased and described the procession of the events. “Now we had lots of money and technology and so they built a fucking great hydraulic door which closed at light speed and somebody said, ‘Ooh I wonder what this is?'” Ford said, according to The Guardian.
He continued: “And the door came down and hit me on my left hip because I was turned to my right. And then it flung my left leg up and it dislocated my ankle and as it drove me down to the floor, my legs slapped on the ramp up to the Millennium Falcon and broke both bones in my left leg.”
Ford, who was 71 at the time, was airlifted to the nearest hospital after being struck by the door to the Millenium Falcon.
Foodles Production, a UK-based production company, admitted responsibility for failing to implement comprehensive safety for their employees.
The charges were filed by the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE). “During the filming of Star Wars Episode Seven: The Force Awakens, the actor Harrison Ford was badly injured after he became trapped under a rapidly closing-metal-framed door. The power of the door’s drive system was comparable to the weight of a small car,” a spokesperson for HSE explained.
According to Part 1, Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, “it shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the healthy, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.”
“This was a foreseeable incident. Foodles Production (UK) Ltd has accepted it failed to protect actors and staff and HSE welcomes the firm’s guilty plea,” the spokesman continued.
Andrew Marshall, one of the prosecutors in the case, said that these violations of UK’s health and safety legislation was potentially fatal, according to The Guardian. “It could have killed somebody. The fact that it didn’t was because an emergency stop was activated,” he said.
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