A production assistant working on Batwoman in Vancouver is currently paralyzed following an accident on the set of The CW‘s Arrowverse series last week. According to the Vancouver Sun, comedian Amanda Smith was working on the set of the series when a boom lift bucket was lowered onto her head, trapping her underneath and resulting in serious spinal injuries that have left her unable to feel anything from the waist down even after surgery. The accident took place while the series was filming beneath Vancouver’s Georgia Viaduct on Wednesday, March 11.
“She was literally just sitting there and it came down on top of her,” Smith’s colleague and friend Tyler Mazzucco said.
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Mazzucco has since launched a GoFundMe for Smith, hoping to raise $50,000 to help with expenses as Smith will be out of work for the foreseeable future. As of the time of this article’s writing, the efforts have raised nearly $34,000.
“While doing her job as a production assistant, the bucket of a lift lowered onto her head and she was trapped beneath it,” the page reads. “She underwent emergency spinal surgery to repair the damage. Unfortunately, with this type of surgery, there is no way to know if it was successful until she undergoes significant therapy.”
“Amanda will be unable to work for the foreseeable future and she needs our help to make ends meet until she settles,” the page continues. “We do not want her to have to worry about finances as she goes through these uncertain times.”
Those uncertain times also includes the impact of COVID-19. The pandemic has resulted in the near complete shutdown of Vancouver’s film industry, something Mazzucco said has impacted donations as well as morale.
“It’s lessened the amount of donations because everyone’s on lockdown financially,” he said. “I have 32 unread messages on my phone right now and half of them are people asking what they can do because they can’t do anything financially.”
Smith’s accident is sadly not the first accident on the Batwoman set that carried paralysis risk. Last year, series star Ruby Rose underwent emergency neck surgery after suffering an injury as a result of a stunt gone wrong that left her at risk of becoming paralyzed due to the severity. Rose, however, recovered though her days of doing stunts to that extent are probably over as Rose said last fall that she’d “earned her stripes”
Production on Batwoman as well as Supergirl, The Flash, and Riverdale, have all suspended production due to COVID-19.
Batwoman airs Sundays at 8/7c on The CW.
