The Walking Dead stuntman dies after on-set fall

A coroner says a stuntman for The Walking Dead has died from injuries suffered in a fall on the Georgia set of the hit television show.

Coweta County Coroner Richard Hawk confirmed Friday that 33-year-old John Bernecker died about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at an Atlanta hospital.

Bernecker fell earlier Wednesday on the show's set in Senoia, about 56 km south of Atlanta.

Hawk said Bernecker died from blunt force trauma and that his death is considered accidental.

The Walking Dead, the often-gory AMC show based on a comic series that chronicles the lives of people fighting to survive a zombie apocalypse, is filming its eighth season.

Phone and email messages left for AMC representatives were not immediately returned Friday.

Production shuttered temporarily

AMC had announced on Thursday morning that it was temporarily shutting down production of the show following the incident.

"We are saddened to report that John Bernecker, a talented stuntman for The Walking Dead and numerous other television shows and films, suffered serious injuries from a tragic accident on set," the U.S. TV network said in a statement. 

"He was immediately transported to an Atlanta hospital and we have temporarily shut down production. We are keeping John and his family in our thoughts and prayers."

A spokesperson for the American performers union SAG-AFTRA has said the guild is investigating the accident.

According to his IMDb page, Bernecker has worked extensively as stunt performer whose credits included Logan, Get Out, The Fate of the Furious, 24: Legacy, several of the The Hunger Games films and upcoming releases such as Black Panther and Rampage.

1st U.S. on-set death since 2014

Michael D'Aquino, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, says the agency has opened an investigation.

Bernecker's passing is the first on-set death in the United States since an audio technician for the show Cops was killed during a shootout in Omaha in August 2014. Bryce Dion, 38, was killed while filming an attempted armed robbery at a fast-food restaurant when a stray bullet from a police officer slipped past his bulletproof vest.

Earlier that year, in February 2014, Sarah Jones, 27, died when a freight train slammed into a film crew shooting Midnight Rider, a movie about the life of singer Gregg Allman. The crash happened on a Georgia railroad bridge where the crew was filming actor William Hurt in a hospital bed placed on the tracks, though owner CSX Transportation had denied permission to production managers.

A lawsuit filed by Jones' parents, who live in Columbia, S.C., is currently being tried in Chatham County State Court in Savannah. It says CSX shares equal blame with production managers who never told Jones and other crew members they were trespassing. They say the railroad should have taken safety precautions to slow the train before the crash.

CSX attorneys have said any evidence that CSX failed to follow internal policies doesn't prove the railroad was negligent. They insist the full blame lies with the Midnight Rider production managers. The ill-fated film's director, Randall Miller, spent a year in jail after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing. The film was never finished.