At around 10:55 a.m. on Friday, a car hit a house in the Mar Vista neighborhood, causing a “violent fire”, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Heche, 53, was pulled from the car, a Mini Cooper, and taken to hospital.
It took 59 firefighters and 65 minutes to put out the blaze, which caused extensive damage, according to firefighters.
A woman was inside the house when the accident occurred but was not injured, CNN reported. A GoFundMe Campaign was set up for the woman, who “lost her entire life of possessions,” according to the fundraiser’s release.
The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the circumstances of the crash, including the possibility Heche may have been driving under the influence, Officer Norma Eisenman, a spokeswoman, confirmed to The Washington Post. A warrant for the actress’ blood was obtained the day of the incident, Eisenman said. As of Tuesday morning, Heche had not been charged with any crime.
Representatives for Heche did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Heche’s acting career took off after her appearance on the soap opera “Another World” from the 1980s, and she went on to star in films such as “Donnie Brasco” and “Six Days Seven Nights.” She dated Ellen DeGeneres for 3½ years beginning in the late 1990s, in a relationship that caught the public eye.
Shortly before Friday’s accident, at around 10:35 a.m., Heche bought a wig at a salon in Venice, where salon owner Richard Glass told the Los Angeles Times, adding that she was in good spirits and did not appear to be intoxicated. He posted a photo on Instagram with a smiling Heche.
TMZ reported that Heche crashed his vehicle in the garage of an apartment building the same morning. The outlet obtained video which it says shows her peeling off after the collision, although the footage is not timestamped.
Surveillance footage from 10:53 a.m. that day, obtained by CBSA and TMZshows Heche’s blue Mini Cooper driving through Mar Vista just before crashing into the house, outlets say.
David Manpearl, a neighbor of the destroyed house, told the Times he was at his office on Friday morning when he saw a car speed past his window. He heard a crash a few moments later. Manpearl ran out of his house and into the street, where he saw a car had driven through the front of his neighbor’s house and was stuck in the back wall, he told The Times. Going inside, he saw a barefoot female occupant in the middle of her kitchen, asking for help with her pets, he told the newspaper.
“She couldn’t move because the ceiling had fallen down, so there was all kinds of debris everywhere,” Manpearl said, adding that he helped the occupant of the house to safety – and tried to help Heche.
“It got to a point where there was fire everywhere. It was all around us,” Manpearl told The Times. “It had spread from the car to the house and the smoke was getting thick. I kept hoping the firefighters were there but they hadn’t arrived yet and I eventually had to leave the house for my own security.
Heche was taken to hospital with serious injuries, and The CBSA reported the destroyed blue Mini Cooper was later removed from the house.