Actress Anne Heche was trapped in a home for more than half an hour after crashing into it, according to reports.
On Thursday, NBC4 reported that firefighters were unable to begin efforts to save Heche’s life until roughly 45 minutes after they arrived at the scene of the crash, citing Los Angeles City Fire Department records and time-stamped recordings of radio communications.
According to the recordings, firefighters could not access the actress’s car for at least 20 minutes.
It then took another 20 minutes to get the car out of the house that was on fire.
LAFD Deputy Chief Richard Fields told the outlet, “Given the heavy fire and smoke conditions, it wasn’t that you could clearly see into the vehicle or clearly be able to access it.”
He explained, “Heavy smoke conditions, heavy fire conditions, which makes it very difficult for us to just see each other on the inside of a working structure fire.”
The outlet noted that the first engine arrived at 11:01 a.m. and within seconds the dispatchers reported that there was a person trapped inside the car that crashed into the house.
A firefighter later reported at 11:18 that there was not anyone else inside.
Four minutes later, one of the incident commanders asked, “Let me clear this up, so – you do have a patient in the car?”
A firefighter said at 11:25, “We have identified one patient, inaccessible at this time, he’s pushed up against the floorboard!”
Fields said that Heche collapsed below the front seats of her car.
“I will say that that where the person was in the vehicle was not in the driver’s seat, but on the floorboard of the passenger seat,” he said.
It was not until 11:49 a.m. that Heche was pulled from the wreckage, as NBC4 reported.
“We have one patient in the auto, being assessed, about to be loaded up on the gurney for transport,” a firefighter said at the time.
Heche was initially treated at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center before being transferred to the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital.
She died just one week later.
On Thursday, it was also reported that Heche died without a will.
As a result, Heche’s oldest son, Homer Heche Laffoon, asked a Los Angeles County Court this week if he could be in control of his mother’s fortune.
