Authorities are investigating the horrific movie set electrocution death in Georgia of a filmmaker from New York University, but exactly what went wrong remains a mystery.
Recent NYU film school graduate John Hunt Lamensdorf, 22, of Sarasota, Fla., was electrocuted and another seriously injured in an accident while working on a movie set in Monticello, Ga.
The NYU crew ran electrical wiring around a house to light a night shoot with a power generator, when a mechanical arm lift on a truck parked across the road struck overhead electrical lines, Jasper County sheriff's Lt. Jerry Robinson said Saturday.
Robinson said that sent a charge through the wires the crew was working with, shocking one student in front of the house who was airlifted to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. The accident happened Thursday night.
Lamensdorf, who was setting up lights in the rear of the house about 100 yards away from the truck that hit the power lines, was pronounced dead at Jasper Memorial Hospital, Robinson said.
The injured student was not identified over the weekend.
NYU spokesman John Beckman released a statement saying Lamensdorf was a recent film school graduate.
"This is the first time that anyone can recall a student being seriously injured, let alone killed, on the set of a student film, and it comes as a great and grievous blow to our community," the statement said.
It said faculty members from the Tisch School of the Arts and a counselor from the university's counseling service were sent to Georgia to support the other students involved in the production.
Robinson said the film crew was working with Pen Pals Productions out of Gainesville, Ga. He said they arrived Wednesday at the set near Monticello, about 50 miles southeast of Atlanta.
Pen Pals Productions was formed in the summer of 2006 by Stephen Michael Simon and Patrick Murphy, both aspiring filmmakers at New York University, according to its Web site.
A woman who answered a telephone call Saturday at the Pen Pals number in Gainesville would not give her name and said she had instructions to refer all calls to NYU.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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