‘Fall Guy’ Crash in Encino Goes Amiss, 3 Hurt : Stunt Man Burned During Filming

A stunt man was badly burned and two studio workers were seriously injured Friday when a flaming car slammed into a camera crew during filming in Encino of a scene for the television series “The Fall Guy.”

Witnesses said a cameraman was knocked onto Woodley Avenue by the impact and another crew member was carried more than 100 feet on top of the burning car before it careened into a cornfield in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area.

Two other crew members suffered minor burns when they pulled the driver from the flaming stunt car, witnesses said.

The driver was identified by 20th Century Fox Television, which produces the ABC-TV series, as John Cade, 33. He was at Sherman Oaks Community Hospital burn center with second-degree burns to his face, a studio spokesman said. He was reported in stable condition Friday night.

Broken Bones, Burns

Cameraman Don McCuaid, 42, and Robert King, 30, a stunt man who was acting as a lookout for McCuaid, suffered broken legs and were taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, the spokesman said. They were listed in serious condition.

The two other burned crew members were not identified.

The crash occurred as Cade steered a speeding sedan up a wooden ramp and over a 40-foot-long semi-trailer parked at the entrance to the Donald Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, witnesses said. The car was set up to burst into flames as it sailed over the truck and onto the northbound lanes of Woodley Avenue, they said.

That much went as planned. But the car hit the pavement harder than expected and swerved sideways, according to witnesses. McCuaid and King, who were operating equipment set up in the middle of Woodley Avenue, were hit as they attempted to run out of the path of the careening car, witnesses said. Their camera was untouched.

‘Car Sagged in Middle’

“It looked like the car’s suspension failed,” said off-duty Los Angeles Police Officer Jim Van Bibber, who watched the drama unfold as he stopped Woodley Avenue traffic for the filming. “They had it beefed up, but the whole car sagged in the middle. The car went out of control sideways and hit the camera crew.”

Another witness, Don Skriver, said King was carried 100 feet by the skidding stunt car and then was thrown into the air as the vehicle bounced over a curb and bike path and skidded into the cornfield.

“It was really a sad sight. Everybody on the crew seemed to be stunned by it. They completely stopped everything for a few moments before everybody ran over to help the people who were hurt,” said Skriver, a security guard at the sewage treatment plant.

Three studio cameras filmed the crash. A studio spokesman said it has not been decided whether the scene will have to be staged again for a fall episode of the adventure series.

“The Fall Guy” stars actor Lee Majors as a Hollywood stunt man and bounty hunter. He and series co-stars Doug Farr and Heather Thomas were not present during the 11 a.m. incident, the studio said.

Fistfights After Wreck

Crew members who witnessed the crash refused to discuss the incident with reporters. But off-duty policemen hired by the studio for traffic control said emotions ran high after the incident.

Officers broke up several fistfights among crew members after the injured workers were taken to hospitals, Officer John Armour said.

“Everybody’s questioning everybody about what went wrong. I don’t think anything went wrong. It was just an accident,” Armour said.

Alcus Holly, a stunt safety representative for the Screen Actors Guild, was sent to the scene to discuss the crash with the film unit’s director. Holly said he did not order production shut down, and filming resumed several hours later.

Two years ago, nine “Fall Guy” crew members were injured, three of them seriously, when a jeep with a stuck accelerator plowed into a crowd during filming of a scene in Newhall.