Anne Heche has ‘severe burns’,and lucky to be alive after car crash

Los Angeles: Actor Anne Heche has severe burns and remains in hospital intensive care following an accident in which her car smashed into a house and flames erupted.

CNN reported a source close to Heche as saying the actress has suffered severe burns.

“Anne is in the ICU,she’s lucky to be alive. She has severe burns and has a long recovery ahead. Her team and her family are still trying to process what led up to the crash,” the source said.

Heche’s speeding car came to a T-shaped intersection and ran off the road and into the house in the Mar Vista section of Los Angeles’ westside shortly before 11am on Friday (US time),Los Angeles police Officer Tony Im said.

The car came to a stop inside the two-story house and started a fire that took nearly 60 firefighters more than an hour to douse,the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

A statement from a spokeswoman urged prayers for the actress.

“Anne is currently in stable condition. Her family and friends ask for your thoughts and prayers and to respect her privacy during this difficult time,” Heather Duffy Boylston,Heche’s friend and podcast partner,said in a statement.

Television news video showed a blue Mini Cooper Clubman,badly damaged and burned,being towed out of the home,with a woman sitting up on a stretcher and struggling as firefighters put her in an ambulance.

No other injuries were reported,and no arrests have been made. Police detectives are investigating.

Sources in the Los Angeles Police Department told US network ABC that they suspect Heche was driving at an excessive speed at the time of the crash. The network reported that police have been unable to speak with Heche in hospital due to her condition.

A native of Ohio,Heche first came to prominence on the NBC soap operaAnother World from 1987 to 1991. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for the role.

In the late 1990s she became one of the hottest actors in Hollywood,a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. She co-starred with Johnny Depp in 1997’sDonnie Brasco;with Tommy Lee Jones in 1997’sVolcano;with Harrison Ford in 1998’sSix Days,Seven Nights;with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix in 1998’sReturn to Paradise,and with an ensemble cast in the original 1997I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Her relationship withEllen DeGeneres from 1997 to 2000 heightened her fame and brought immense public scrutiny.

In the autumn of 2000 soon after the two broke up,Heche was hospitalised after knocking on the door of a stranger in a rural area near Fresno,California. Authorities said she had appeared shaken and disoriented,and spoke incoherently to the residents.

In a memoir released the following year,Call Me Crazy,Heche talked about her lifelong struggles with mental health and a childhood of abuse.

She was married to camera operator Coleman Laffoon from 2001 to 2009. The two had a son together. She had another son during a relationship with actor James Tupper,her co-star on the TV seriesMen in Trees.

Heche has worked consistently in smaller films,on Broadway,and on TV shows in the past two decades. She recently had recurring roles on the network seriesChicago P.D. andAll Rise,and in 2020 was a contestant onDancing with the Stars.

Better Together,the podcast hosted by Heche and Duffy Boylston,is described online as a celebration of friendship.

AP