The following are the facts of the accident of Thirty One March, Nineteen Hundred Ninety Three as I have interpreted them. These facts presented herein are based on all the information I have personally accumulated from reading, hearing and/or seeing in various publications and broadcasts.
In actuality, fate was already conspiring against or young hero weeks before the actual event that took his life on 31 March. Beginning the day the second filming crew requested the .44 magnum gun and six dummy bullets (bullets that look like the real thing except they have no powder in them) for close ups. The dummy bullets were meant to be used for head-on, close up shots so that the slugs could be seen in the chamber. The problem was that the prop department did not have the "dummy" bullets for the .44, so instead of waiting until the next day to obtain professionally made dummies from the local prop shop, crew members decided to fashion their own out of real live ammo that was retreived from one of the crew members trunk. This was a violation of proper procedure as live ammo is NEVER supposed to be used on a set. Nevertheless, members took the live rounds and pulled them apart, seperating the slugs from the casings. They then emptied the casings of their powder and the slugs were then jammed back into the casings.
The camera shot the close up looking straight down the gun barrel - just a quick flash for the final sequence to show the cylinder turning and the hammer going down. While they were setting up the shot, the stand-in squeezed the trigger a few times to get comfortable with the gun. He later recalled hearing a little pop and alerted the camera operator. But since neither was a weapons expert, neither knew what to make of it. In fact, this was the fatal moment: one of the primers had gone off in the dummy, igniting the residue of gunpowder, which caused just enough of an explosion to propel the bullet partway down the barrel and lodged it in there. (For ballistic reasons, the barrel of a gun is slightly smaller than the bullet.) An experienced gun handler would undoubtedly have understood what the sound meant, looked down the barrel, and spotted the dislodged bullet.
The shot proceeded as planned. At one point, the camera operator reportedly noticed one of the tips missing and asked the stand-in to rotate the cylinder so the camera wouldn't pick it up. Yet again, it was a detail that would immediately have alarmed anyone who knew guns. Instead, the shot was completed, the gun emptied and no one mentioned the missing tip. Gun and bullets were returned to the prop truck.
Still, Lee's death was not yet a foregone conclusion. Guns are usually cleaned whenever they are returned to the prop truck. But because the gun had not actually been fired, Kuttner and Hamer saw no reason to bother.
Several weeks later, when Hamer went to get the gun off the prop truck on that fatal night, she opened the pouch in which the gun was kept and a single dummy bullet tumbled out. Not thinking anything of it and in a rush as usual, she checked the cylinder - but not the barrel - and handed it to Massee for rehearsal. At this point, the four other dummies and the empty casing were still in the pouch, which Hamer placed on the prop cart.
A few minutes later, Kuttner arrived on the set with the blanks. He noticed the gun pouch on the cart and even noticed that one of the casings was missing a tip. Perhaps he recalled that the gun had been to the second unit several weeks earlier, but surely if they'd had any problems, he would of have heard - he was only a radio call away. But apparently no one had said a word. Perhaps if all five dummies plus the single casing had been in the pouch, he would have understood. Instead, he took the gun from Massee and loaded it with a blank. Unbeknownst to him, the bullet tip was still in the barrel, just waiting to be fired into Lee's belly. "This accident is like the sinking of the Titantic, " says Ron Greenwood, a veteran Hollywood prop master. " So many things went wrong, and there was so much negligence, as to defy belief." (Premiere Magazine: Chronicle of a Death Foretold…Why was the gun loaded?July 1993By Jeffrey Goodell)
Shortly after midnight on 31 March, 1993, fate was already wrapping it's tragic tentacles around those present on stage 4 of the Carolco Studios' backlot were filming of a flashback scene was set to commence. The scene was intended to show how Brandon's character, Eric Draven, was killed. Brandon's last sane words were supposedly, "Bang! Bang! Don't forget to send flowers!" He was referring to his characters upcoming funeral scene.
The camera and sound began rolling. The Assistant Director yelled "Action!" Funboy and his partner T-Bird began their taunting of Sophia Shinas (Shelley Webster), while Skank and Tin Tin held her in the chair.
Brandon had been ready in his position outside the door of the set, and key grip Chunky Huse may have been the last person to speak to him in the moments before he made his entrance: "Because me and him were just sitting outside the door shooting the shit really, that's what we were doing. And he went, 'da da da,' and they said, 'Get ready' and looked at me and he said, 'Here we go.' I said, yup, here we go, good luck, mate and I was sitting with my back against the wall. And there's the door, action... Open the door, in he went..."
Brandon entered and attempted to get out his first line, but none of the crew later remembered hearing it. Funboy spun around, gun in hand, saw Eric- and fired! At this point the slug that remained in the chamber was pushed through with double the force and struck Brandon, perforating his abdomen, tearing several vital organs, causing an internal hemmorrage, and finally lodging itself against his vertebrae (had he lived there was a good chance he may have been paralyzed).
Eric fell to the floor, and Alex Proyas (director) yelled, "Cut!"
Brandon never got up and at first some of the crew thought he was joking around, but when realization kicked in, panic erupted. Clyde Bassee, set paramedic administered cpr as they awaited the ambulance.
Brandon arrived at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, some 30 minutes later. There he was attended by Dr. Warren W. McMurry. After five hours of surgery, Lee's condition had not improved. Said McMurry, "There was so much blood loss, It wouldn't clot, it was oozing from everywhere.
At 1:04 p.m. Thursday, 31 March, little more than 12 hours after Brandon Lee had been shot, and nearly 5 hours before Linda Lee Emery Cadwell, Brandon's Mother, could reach her son's bedside in intensive care, Brandon Bruce Lee, actor extraordinaire, martial artist, son of a legend, brother, son, fiancee and beloved by thousands around the world, was pronounced dead.
Brandon Lee was laid to rest on Three April, Nineteen Hundred Ninety Three beside his father, Bruce Lee, at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle Washington.