Anne Heche

Actress Anne Heche is in a coma after crashing car into home, rep says

Actress Anne Heche has fallen into a coma and remains in “extreme critical condition” days after she crashed her car into a Los Angeles home, causing both to erupt into flames, a representative told news outlets on Monday.

“She has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention,” Michael McConnell, a Heche representative, told Reuters and other news outlets. “She is in a coma and has not regained consciousness since shortly after the accident.”

On Friday around 10:55 a.m., a car crashed into a home in the Mar Vista neighborhood, causing a “heavy fire,” the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Heche, 53, was pulled from the car, a Mini Cooper, and transported to a hospital.

It took 59 firefighters and 65 minutes to extinguish the blaze, which caused major damage, according to the fire department.

Shortly before the crash on Friday, around 10:35 a.m., Heche bought a wig at a salon in Venice, the salon’s owner, Richard Glass, told the Los Angeles Times, adding that she was in good spirits and did not appear to be intoxicated. He posted a photo on Instagram with a smiling Heche.

TMZ reported that Heche crashed her vehicle into the garage of an apartment building that same morning. The media outlet obtained video it says shows her peeling off after the collision, though the footage is not time-stamped.

Surveillance footage from 10:53 a.m. that day, obtained by CBSLA and TMZ, shows Heche’s blue Mini Cooper speeding through Mar Vista just before crashing into the house, according to the outlets.

David Manpearl, a neighbor of the destroyed home, told the Times he was at his desk on Friday morning when he saw a car speed past his window. He heard a crash moments later. Manpearl ran out of his house and down the street, where he saw a car had driven through the front of his neighbor’s house and was wedged in the back wall, he told the Times. Going inside, he saw a barefoot occupant in the middle of her kitchen, asking for help with her pets, he told the paper.