On Sept 14, 2021, Michael Oronoz’s life changed in an instant.
While working as a grip on Netflix’s hit movie “Me Time,” which stars Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg, the now-41-year-old fell 33 feet to the floor after leaning on an allegedly faulty unsecured gate.
The fall left him with a broken jaw, broken femurs, a collapsed lung and a traumatic brain injury that stripped him of his ability to walk and talk. He had no recollection of the 10 years of life he had lived prior to the accident, including his wedding day and the birth of his five children.
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“This definitely has changed our lives drastically,” Michael’s wife of 16 years, Selina, told Fox News Digital.
Now, the couple, who in 2023 filed a lawsuit against Hudson Pacific Properties, the company that owns Sunset Gower Studios where the movie was being filmed, is hoping their story can ignite change when it comes to safety on sets.
“I do not want this to happen to somebody else,” Selina said.
Going back to that life-changing day on the set, Selina recalled the moment she learned of her husband’s accident.
“I just remember getting off the phone and my heart just sank,” she said of receiving the initial call from Michael’s brother. “I’ll never forget it. I remember sharing with my pastor a week prior that my biggest fear is that I would get a call that Michael wouldn’t be here anymore. I was living my biggest fear.”
“[The doctor] said, ‘It doesn’t look promising,'” said Selina, who shares five kids all under 16 with Michael. “I had to tell the kids, which was the hardest part. They were all sitting on the couch. And I just told them, ‘I have to go. Your daddy fell.’ And they all cried. That was really hard.”
According to the lawsuit obtained by Fox News Digital, Michael was working on an elevated platform at the time of his fall.
“[Michael] fell through a gate that was improper, unsafe, and a dangerous condition given its installation and/or manner of opening,” the lawsuit reads. “At all times, [Hudson Pacific Properties] had control of the gate and, on information and belief, installed and maintained the gate and had a duty to protect [Michael] from the dangerous gate.”
The couple’s attorney, Alexander Eisner of Steel & Eisner, said injuries on television and film sets are “endemic.”
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“These are really old studios,” Eisner told Fox News Digital. “The one that Michael fell in was built in 1957. There are others on that same Sunset Gower lot that are over 100 years old. And the way the building code works is you’re not obligated to bring things up into the modern building code, modern safety standards, unless you make a major renovation.”
“The latch that was on it was broken, and the gate opened the wrong direction,” he continued. “And they knew. They knew about this. Netflix and Hudson did a walk-through of the space three months before Michael fell when ‘Me Time’ started production. They took two photographs of this gate, one with it tied shut with a piece of string – evidencing that somebody knew that the latch was broken and that it wouldn’t stay shut without the string – and one with the string on the ground and the gate open, showing that it opened the wrong way.”
“They were well aware of this,” Eisner added, “and for whatever reason chose not to fix it.”
In a motion to throw out the lawsuit, Hudson denied there was anything wrong with the gate in question.
“The gate was safe when inspected by Hudson,” the lawyers wrote, according to Variety. “The gate was also safe thereafter when used with due care by the ‘Me Time’ production crew. The risk of harm only existed when used without care and Plaintiff decided to lean on the gate and reach up to the hoist motor.”
Both Netflix and Hudson Pacific Properties declined to comment when reached by Fox News Digital.
In Hudson’s motion for summary obtained by Fox News Digital, the studio said the gate “at issue” was built and installed prior to Hudson’s purchase in 2007. Before Michael’s fall, “Hudson never received any requests for repair or notice from Netflix of any issues with the gate.”
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Additionally, “Hudson never had any incidents with the gate since it bought the studio in 2007.”
According to Eisner, a life-care plan created by Michael’s doctors, which includes future medical costs and lost wages, is estimated at $14 million.
Both sides are now in mediation.
Though Michael is back to working a couple of days here and there, Selina said he and their family will never be the same.
“I don’t want to see any other wife have to go through this,” Selina said. “I told Michael, ‘The Lord saved your life for a reason. Maybe it was to save other people’s lives.’ We need to share our story because this could potentially prevent this from happening again and again and again.”
