‘Rust’ Shooting Reminds GH’s Emma Samms of Jon-Erik Hexum Tragedy

While General Hospital viewers eagerly await the return of Holly Sutton and the mystery of what happened to her, actress Emma Samms was reminded of her dear friend, actor Jon-Erik Hexum, after hearing about the tragedy on the set of Rust, in which two people were shot on set and one, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, died.

Emma Samms Speaks Out

The beloved star, who recently married Simon McCoy, took the opportunity to open up on Twitter about that horrible accidental shooting that took his life on the set of his hit show, Cover Up, almost exactly 37 years ago — on October 18, 1984.

“This AWFUL tragedy on #Rust is unfathomable to me,” she began. “If all on-set protocols were being adhered to, how, on earth, could it have happened? After what happened to Brandon Lee and my dear friend Jon-Erik Hexum, the firearm protocols became incredibly strict.”

Those protocols are very strict across Hollywood, including on the General Hospital set, where Samms and others, including Kelly Thiebaud (Britt Westbourne), have had to interact with the weapons. Thiebaud also tweeted about the movie set incident and explained what GH does.

“I was at work today and our prop guy came around to show us the fake unloaded prop gun,” she wrote. “It happens every time a ‘weapon’ is in a scene. I can’t stop thinking about the entire #RustMovie Crew, #HalynaHutchins family, and friends.. how terrible. Things like this should never happen.”

Samms went on to explain what happened almost four decades ago to her friend. “I was told (when I was with him at the hospital afterward) that Jon-Erik had been working with a completely empty gun all morning. A blank (still very dangerous) was loaded and then immediately there was a delay. Exhausted, he was allowed to fall asleep – loaded gun in hand.

“They woke him, but there was immediately another delay,” she continued. “Jon-Erik put the gun to his head, forgetting it now contained a blank, (because he had just woken up) and jokingly pulled the trigger. He was not the kind of person to play around with a loaded gun.”

General Hospital (GH) airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Port Charles, check out all the latest that’s been posted on GH spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.