Harrison Ford was almost killed on the Star Wars set

Actor Harrison Ford.
(Image credit: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for Walt Disney Studios)

Actor Harrison Ford had a brush with death in an accident on the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens during filming in 2014, although he luckily managed to escape with just a broken leg, The Independent reports. Ford was walking through the door of the Millennium Falcon spaceship when he allegedly was knocked to the ground and crushed by a hydraulic door, said Andrew Marshall, the prosecutor arguing the case against the production company.

"It could have killed somebody," Marshall said. "The fact that it didn't was because the emergency stop was activated." The door still reportedly crushed Ford's pelvic area with power comparable to the weight of a small car, breaking his leg, and he had to be airlifted to a hospital in Oxford.

Ford, then 71, who plays the character Han Solo, said in the original films the door would have been closed simply using a pulley or a stage hand. "But now we had lots of money and technology and so they built a f---ing great hydraulic door which closed at light speed," he said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The Disney-owned production company, Foodles Production (UK) Ltd, admitted to health and safety breaches surrounding the incident.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.