9-1-1 heads into season 10 after four stunt injuries, including Oliver Stark's broken ankle

9-1-1 returns for its tenth season on October 15 with four stunt injuries behind it. Oliver Stark broke his ankle and needed surgery, and three other performers were hurt in separate incidents over the past few months. The first of those injuries never made it into an official report.

Deadline, which broke the story, says the incidents do not appear to be connected. A spokesperson for 20th Television, which produces the series for ABC, declined to comment. What the reporting does show is how the safety system around a stunt-heavy broadcast show works, and where it can miss things.

The injury nobody reported

Stark's accident in late August came at the end of a chain. The stunt involved a firefighter swinging from a car, over a set piece, onto the ladder truck.

During rehearsals, a stunt double sprained an ankle doing that exact move. The double declined medical treatment, so no injury report went to production. The mechanics of the stunt were then adjusted. When Stark performed it, he rolled his ankle over another performer in the scene, broke it and needed surgery.

That is the trap in the headline count. Deadline lists four performers injured, Stark included, and the stunt double is one of them. But on paper, the warning that came before Stark's injury does not exist. Anyone reviewing the production's own records would find one fewer injury, and no sign that the move had already hurt someone.

What happened, case by case

• The rehearsal: a stunt double sprains an ankle on the car-to-ladder-truck stunt, declines treatment, and no report is filed.
• Late August: Stark breaks his ankle on the adjusted version of the same stunt. He has surgery, production continues, and he has since returned to work. The details had not been made public until now.
• The following weeks: a stunt performer cuts an arm on jagged metal on the set and needs hospital treatment and stitches.
• The last two weeks: another stunt performer has an "awkward landing" on a platform built to simulate a ground collapse. The result is a broken rib and a minor compressed lung. Production sources call the hospital trip precautionary. It is unclear whether this performer is back at work.

The rules that are supposed to catch this

All SAG-AFTRA signatories, including Disney, which owns 20th Television, have to follow set safety protocols. Stunt performers and coordinators must complete a general safety and injury prevention program to stay eligible for union work. The standards come from Contract Services' industry-wide safety committee.

• Time: production management must allow enough time for rehearsals, training, equipment preparation and inspections.
• The coordinator: the stunt coordinator leads script review, planning, site selection, testing, rehearsal, modification and the choice of personnel and equipment.
• The meeting: the first assistant director holds an on-set safety meeting with a walk-through before any stunt.
• Changes: a second safety meeting is required if there are any "substantive changes" to a stunt.

On 9-1-1, stunts are typically tested first with heavy bags so the crew can work out the weight distribution, then rehearsed with stunt doubles, and only then with the actors. Stark's stunt went through that process, and was changed after the double got hurt. Whether that change triggered the second safety meeting the rules require is one of the things the reporting does not say.

A show built on spectacle, on a broadcast schedule

Deadline is careful to say that a cluster of injuries in one season does not by itself mean negligence. The pressure comes from the format: massive stunt sequences on a regular basis, made inside the tight production schedule of a broadcast network show.

9-1-1 was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear and premiered on Fox on January 3, 2018. It ran for six seasons there before moving to ABC from season seven. Its cast includes Angela Bassett, Oliver Stark, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Guzman, Aisha Hinds and Kenneth Choi.

This is not the first time its set has been under scrutiny. Two years ago, a crew member died of a cardiac event while driving home after a working day stretched to 14 hours by complications with a controlled burn for a stunt. A production source told Deadline at the time that 9-1-1 was one of the safest sets they had worked on.

What is still unknown

• Whether the second safety meeting happened after the stunt was changed.
• Whether the injured performer is back. Deadline could not confirm it.
• Whether anything changes on set. 20th Television has not commented.

The stunt that broke Oliver Stark's ankle had already injured someone in rehearsal. Because that person turned down treatment, the first warning never reached the paperwork.