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UPDATE SATURDAY 3:50 PM: Anne Heche’s publicist has released a statement a day after the actress was rushed to the hospital when a car she was driving crashed and caught fire. “Anne is currently in stable condition. Her family asks for your thoughts and prayers,” the statement said. “We ask to respect her privacy during this difficult time. Thank you.”
PREVIOUS FRIDAY 4:30 PM: Actress Anne Heche has been hospitalized in critical condition with burns after crashing her car into a Los Angeles home, Deadline has confirmed. The news was first reported by TMZ.
The crash occurred at 10:55 AM Friday in the Mar Vista
“The vehicle was heading east on Preston Way at a high rate of speed, entered the T intersection at Preston Way and Walgrove Ave, ran off the road and collided with the residence in the 1700 block of Walgrove,” a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson told Deadline.
“The vehicle became engulfed in flames and the driver was transported to a local hospital by LAFD,” police said. Los Angeles Police Public Information Officer Jeff Lee told CNN that Heche was in critical condition.
The home itself also became engulfed, with flames spreading to the roof.
“Fifty-nine Firefighters took 65 minutes to access, confine and fully extinguish the stubborn flames within the heavily damaged structure,” said Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Multiple local outlets later confirmed that the blue Mini involved in the incident is registered to Heche.
News chopper footage from Fox11 shows the car went well into the house and may have hit one of its side walls.
Fox11’s eye in the sky, Stu Mandel, who often follows pursuits and accidents from the air, described the scene as it unfolded below him.
As firefighters used cables from a massive tow truck to pull the car out of the burning home, the vehicle’s charred top led Mandel, a veteran of many such incidents, to observe, “If there’s somebody alive in there this is going to be a miracle.”
Turns out, the person was alive, and firefighters place the victim on a gurney, face covered, and roll the person to a waiting ambulance. Just before they get to the emergency vehicle, the person on the gurney sits up and tries and get off of it.
“Oh my gosh!” says Mandel, who at the time thought the driver was a male. “He’s completely alive! He was trying to get away.”
Moments later, once emergency workers have gotten the victim into the ambulance, a shocked Mandel says, “I don’t know. That was really, really strange.”
According to TMZ, Heche initially got into a minor accident at a Mar Vista-area apartment complex, crashing into a wall in a parking area, but she drove away from the scene. The crash into the home occurred a short time later.
Heche has several projects in the works. In June she signed on to Lifetime’s Girl in Room 13, set to premiere this fall. She’s also set to star opposite Dermot Mulroney in Full Ride, an upcoming horror-thriller and will recur in All Rise on OWN. Heche most recently starred in the Peter Facinelli-directed psychological thriller The Vanished for Netflix, as well as Quiver’s tornado thriller 13 Minutes.
