Anne Heche remained trapped in a burning house for 45 minutes after she crashed her car into the home on Aug. 5, according to Los Angeles City Fire Department records obtained by Los Angeles NBC affiliate KNBC.
The recordings, obtained by the station under the California Public Records Act, showed firefighters were unable to get to the car for at least 20 minutes after arriving, and it took at least another 20 minutes to pull the car out of the burning home and remove Heche.
“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,” LAFD Deputy Chief Richard Fields told KNBC.
“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,” Fields said.
Heche crashed her Mini Cooper into the home in the Mar Vista neighborhood at around 10:56 a.m., the fire department said.
The time-stamped recordings showed firefighters arrived at the scene at 11:01 a.m. Shortly after that, dispatchers reported that there was a person trapped in the car.
Paramedics were then ordered to treat a woman who was found inside the house, but that person was the woman who lived there, not Heche, Fields told the station.
At 11:18 a.m., a firefighter fighting the blaze radioed to say no one else was inside the home.
Less than five minutes later, one of the incident commanders asked about the driver. At 11:25 a.m., a firefighter said they'd located the driver trapped in the car.
“We have identified one patient, inaccessible at this time, he’s pushed up against, under the floorboard,” the firefighter said.
That person turned out to be Heche, Fields told NBC Los Angeles. She was collapsed on the floorboards of the Mini Cooper's front passenger seat, he said.
Heche was alive at the time, and firefighters used a tow truck to pull her car out of the wreckage while the actor remained inside. She was pulled from the vehicle at 11:49 a.m., according to fire department records obtained by NBC Los Angeles.
Heche was taken to a hospital and died a week later. She was 53. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner ruled she died from inhalation and thermal injuries.
A spokesman for Heche declined comment in a text message with NBC News. Heche’s son Homer Laffoon, 20, declined comment in an email. Heche died without a will and Laffoon has filed paperwork to control her estate. Heche had another son, Atlas, who is 13.
The Los Angeles Coroner’s Office says it is continuing its investigation. The fire department said firefighters would likely not have approached the scene any differently if they knew Heche was in the car.
Heche wound up in a coma following the accident and was declared brain-dead on Aug 11. A blood test revealed she had drugs in her system.