“The Bachelorette” family suffered a devastating blow last month. On April 23, Eric Hill, a contestant on Andi Dorfman’s upcoming season of the ABC dating show, passed away after a paragliding accident. The show is currently working on how to deal with the tragic situation, but “Bachelorette” host Chris Harrison recently revealed that the cast and crew became “very emotional” during taping.

For those familiar with the ABC reality show, “The Bachelorette” cuts off the contestants from the outside world. However, they were forced to change the protocol when 32-year-old Hill passed away.

“We never would have kept it from them,” Chris Harrison revealed to ABC News. “He was a good friend of theirs. Absolutely, they know.”

Harrison continued that Hill’s death hit everyone on the show hard and that they’re still trying to work on how to deal with the tragic event when “The Bachelorette” premieres later this month.

“We’re not sure 100 percent of how we’re going to deal with it,” the host explained of the situation. “We’re doing our best and we made the best decisions we could at the time. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.”

Eric Hill’s death occurred while the crew was separated filming Andi’s hometown dates. The contestant had already been eliminated from the series.

According to Harrison, they tried to deal with filming as “delicately and respectfully” as they could in order to be decent to Hill and his family.

“They’re still dealing with it, still making decisions and trying to come to terms with it because his funeral was a few days ago we all decided, ‘Let’s deal with this and get past it and heal ourselves,’” Harrison explained. “Everybody’s very emotional right now and that’s never a good time to make a final decision.”

As we previously reported, Eric Hill was placed in a medically induced coma after getting into a paragliding accident in April. The extreme sport enthusiast fell 15 to 20 feet after his canopy collapsed on the mountain side. Unconscious from the fall, a rescue team was forced to carry him 100 to 150 feet down the mountain. He was later transported to the University of Utah by medical helicopter. Eric Hill passed away a couple days later on April 23.

The producers of ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” franchise released the following statement on Hill’s death:

“We are deeply saddened to hear about the tragic loss of our friend, Eric Hill. Eric inspired us every day with his passion, his courage and his adventurous spirit, and for that we are very thankful. On behalf of our cast, crew and producers, we send our love, our thoughts and our prayers to Eric’s family during this difficult time.”

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