LOS ANGELES (AP) – Anne Heche remained hospitalized on a ventilator to help her breathe and faced surgery Tuesday, four days after the actor was injured in a fiery car crash.
“Shortly after the accident, Anne became unconscious, slipping into a coma and is in critical condition,” spokeswoman Heather Duffy Boylston said in an email. “She has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention.”
Pulmonary means having to do with the lungs. No further details were provided by Duffy Boylston, who is Heche’s friend and podcast partner.
On Aug. 5, Heche’s car smashed into a house in the Mar Vista area of Los Angeles’ westside. Flames erupted, and Heche, who was alone in the car, was pulled by firefighters from the vehicle embedded in the house. It took nearly 60 firefighters more than an hour to douse the flames, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
A native of Ohio, Heche first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera “Another World” from 1987 to 1991, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award.