After Suffering Brain Injury, Anne Heche To Be Taken Off Life Support

Michael Kaplan August 12, 2022

Anne Heche is not expected to survive the terrible car accident she was in last Friday after suffering sever irrevocable brain injuries and is expected to be taken off life support imminently.

Deadline:

Heche’s family and friends had been hoping for a miracle following the Emmy-winning actor’s horrific car crash last Friday. It didn’t come, and her closest ones are making the difficult decision to take her off life support after she was pronounced brain dead. She is being kept on a ventilator until it’s determined whether any organs not damaged in the crash and subsequent fire can be donated.
“We want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers for Anne’s recovery and thank the dedicated staff and wonderful nurses that cared for Anne at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills hospital.
“Unfortunately, due to her accident, Anne Heche suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and remains in a coma, in critical condition. She is not expected to survive,” a rep for Heche’s family and friends told Deadline.
Heche had been hospitalized since Friday, Aug. 5, when she crashed her car into a Mar Vista house and ignited it. (The house’s owner and her pet were able to evacuate.)
Fifty-nine firefighters battled the blaze, which had engulfed both Heche’s car and the house, for 65 minutes until she could be safely pulled out of the wreckage. Heche was reportedly able to communicate at the time of her rescue but lost consciousness shortly thereafter and never regained it. She has been in a coma ever since.
On Monday, Aug. 8, Heche’s was described as being in “extreme critical condition.”
“She has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention,” a rep for the actor said at the time.
There had been a lot of speculation about Heche’s condition before the crash as she was filmed driving erratically and speeding in the minutes prior to the accident, including getting into another, minor car accident, blocks from the crash site. A blood test was performed after Heche was taken to the hospital.

Anne Heche “Not Expected To Survive” After Severe Brain Injury, Will Be Taken Off Life Support https://t.co/rkyWKL9FGi
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) August 12, 2022

Heche was on cocaine at the time of the accident.

Heche had recently wrapped filming Lifetime movie Girl In Room 13, which explores the dark underworld of the $150-billion-dollar human trafficking industry.

Heche and Ellen DeGeneres were dating when DeGeneres initially came out publicly as gay. Ellen, a major sitcom star in the late ’90s, was the highest profile actor to come out at the time making the whole thing a major media focus. Heche subsequently claimed she was blackballed by Hollywood due to the relationship and that she needed Harrison Ford’s help to save her role in their romantic comedy Six Days, Seven Nights.

DeGeneres told a photographer Wednesday after being asked if she knew anything about Heche’s accident: