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Susan Boehm is an American actress and film industry professional best known for her role in Ghostbusters II (1989), where she played the Young Woman on Crutches in the film's opening sequence.1 Her path to that role is one of the more improbable casting stories in the franchise, rooted in a chance encounter with the original Ghostbusters (1984) production and an injury sustained just days before filming.
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Boehm's screen acting credits include Ghostbusters II (1989), The Rocket, and Celeste. Beyond performing, she has worked on the production side of the film industry, with credits in script and continuity departments and in additional crew capacities, as listed on her IMDb profile.2
Boehm's connection to the franchise began on the original film's New York location shoot. While running an errand in the Tribeca neighborhood, she came across the production in progress and stayed to watch, motivated in part by being a Bill Murray fan. When the crew broke, she reasoned that Murray would likely head somewhere nearby around 4 p.m. and decided to try a nearby restaurant. She found him at the bar with a companion.3
To give herself a reason to linger, she went to a pay phone and pretended to leave a message for a friend, acting as if she were waiting for a call back. Murray came over to use the same phone. When he finished and turned to her, she was nervous and kept holding out her hand; he responded by pressing dimes into it, asking her if she was calling Las Vegas or something. She managed only a "no." The two sat at the bar and talked for a while, though nothing came of the meeting professionally. The encounter nonetheless deepened her attachment to the franchise.3
When production on Ghostbusters II began several years later, Boehm arranged to appear as an extra. A few days before her scheduled filming date, she went out with friends, and the group ended up climbing the fence into Gramercy Park late at night. On the way back out around 2 a.m., she fell on the pavement and woke up at NYU Medical Center with a broken leg.3
She showed up on set on crutches anyway. Director Ivan Reitman picked her out of the group of assembled extras and explained the scene he had in mind: an insert shot in which a boy bumps into her as she walks on crutches. During the rehearsal, Reitman asked Boehm what she would say to the boy. She screamed at him exactly as a New Yorker would. Reitman approved, and she was cast on the spot.3
In the finished film, Boehm's character appears at the very beginning of Ghostbusters II as Dana Barrett walks home from shopping with Oscar in his stroller. The scene was shot on location near the apartment building at 325 East 77th Street on the Upper East Side.4
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
Ghostbusters II (1989), Columbia Pictures. "Susan Boehm as Young Woman on Crutches," IMDb, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097428/characters/nm0091212/ ↩
"Susan Boehm," IMDb, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0091212/ ↩
The Ghostbusters Containment Unit, "Susan Boehm (Woman on Crutches, GB2) Interview!" (June 28, 2022), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X64RiJHcM4Y ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
NYC in Film, "Ghostbusters II (1989)" (April 13, 2024), https://nycinfilm.com/2024/04/13/ghostbusters-ii-1989/ ↩
