There is, unfortunately, more grim news from the set of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, where a crew member was reportedly crushed to death earlier this month. A stuntwoman who’d been injured also recently said that her injuries will cost her an arm.


South African website IOL reports that a resident of Cape Town, South Africa named Ricardo Cornelius was crushed by a US army issue Hummer on the set of the upcoming movie—which is being filmed in South Africa. As a crew member, Cornelius was apparently responsible for rotating a small platform that held the Hummer, but on December 3rd it tilted and the vehicle landed on him. He was reportedly rushed to the hospital, but he died of his injuries hours later.

His wife of just one year, Shafiefa Cornelius, told IOL that, at first, one of her husband’s colleagues called her and suggested that he wasn’t hurt all that badly. They suggested that Ricardo would have to stay in the hospital for “a few days.” Later that day, however, someone personally showed up to escort her to the hospital.


“At the hospital, doctors said they had to take him into theatre as soon as he arrived,’ she told IOL. “His heart stopped and they were fighting for his life but managed to revive him again. The doctors said his lungs were completely flat and he was bleeding a lot.”

“I held his hand and I told him not to leave us because we need him and he is a strong man,” she said. “We were with him for about an hour, then he died.”

When Shafiefa spoke to IOL, she went on to claim that the company Ricardo worked for directly, All Access Crew, compensated her, but nobody’s been in touch with concrete information about the incident. She apparently doesn’t know anything beyond the basics.

“No one can tell me what happened,” she told IOL. “I need closure. His colleagues who I spoke to blocked me on WhatsApp. None of the bosses have even contacted me to tell me what happened.”


I’ve reached out to the movie’s production company and Capcom to find out if this has changed and, if not, what’s going on. As of writing, they had yet to respond.

This isn’t the first major accident to occur on the set of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Earlier this year, stuntwoman Olivia Jackson—film star Milla Jovovich’s stunt double—was involved in a horrific motorcycle accident that nearly took her life. She suffered extensive injuries to her face, neck, back, and arms and was comatose for two weeks afterward.


In an update on Facebook (via her GoFundMe page), she recently explained that one of her arms will have to be amputated:

“My left arm is paralyzed and is going to have to be amputated. It breaks my heart...mainly because I won’t be able to ride MX again, but also because of my work and all the huge changes that will [have] to take place in the energetic life that I love.”


Best wishes to Shafiefa, Olivia, and everyone else involved.

To contact the author of this post, write to nathan.grayson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @vahn16.