Serge Svetnoy cradled Halyna Hutchins’s head as she lay bleeding last month.

She had been shot in the abdomen on the set of the low-budget western film Rust.

For about 30 minutes, the chief lighting technician tried to keep Hutchins awake and alert, court documents said.

Ms Hutchins was pronounced dead hours later at an Albuquerque hospital.

On Wednesday, three weeks after the fatal shooting, Mr Svetnoy filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming the film’s producers – including actor Alec Baldwin, who fired the revolver – and several crew members were negligent and responsible for Hutchins’s death and his own “severe emotional distress”.

It’s the first known suit in connection to the October 21 shooting, which also wounded director Joel Souza.

“I tried to save her life,” Mr Svetnoy said of Ms Hutchins at a Wednesday news conference outside his lawyer’s office.

Mr Svetnoy said he was standing about six or seven feet away from Mr Baldwin on October 21 as the actor rehearsed a scene inside a church on Bonanza Creek Ranch, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a popular filming location.

Mr Baldwin was instructed to sit on one of the pews, reach across his chest for a .45 Long Colt revolver and point it “in the general direction of the camera,” according to the lawsuit. 
Mr Svetnoy suddenly heard a boom and “felt a strange and terrifying whoosh of what felt like pressurised air from his right,” the lawsuit says.

Gunpowder and residual materials allegedly struck the right side of his face, scratching his eyeglass lenses.

His hearing became muffled, he said.

Mr Svetnoy turned to his left and saw Ms Hutchins clutching her lower torso in pain, the lawsuit says. He ran to her, lowering her onto her back. Mr Svetnoy sat with Hutchins until paramedics arrived. She was pronounced dead a few hours later.

Santa Fe detectives are still investigating the chain of events that day.

Santa Fe County District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies told ABC’s Good Morning America she is prepared to file criminal charges, calling Ms Hutchins’s death avoidable. 

Mr Svetnoy’s lawsuit names about two dozen defendants, including Baldwin; Hannah Gutierrez, the 24-year-old gun handler; and Dave Halls, the first assistant director.

They “failed to act with reasonable care, violated relevant and prevailing industry standards, and negligently exercised their assigned and assumed duties in the filming of this motion picture,” the lawsuit says.

Attorneys or representatives for Mr Baldwin, Ms Gutierrez and Ms Halls did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mr Baldwin has previously said he is “fully cooperating” with the investigation.

Mr Svetnoy alleged that ammunition was not “stored securely” and was “left unattended in the prop truck”.

He also said the firearm handed to Mr Baldwin was “left unsecured on a prop cart” before the scene.
The lawsuit claims the named defendants “declined requests for weapons training days” and did not allow enough time to prepare for gunfire.

The staff was allegedly spread too thin, and the cost-cutting “endangered the lives and safety of cast and crew,” the lawsuit adds. 

© Washington Post