Advertisement

‘A car just went through my neighbor’s house’: 911 call from scene of Anne Heche crash released

Police tape is up the home where Anne Heche crashed
Police tape is up on Aug. 8 at the home in the 1700 block of Walgrove Avenue in Mar Vista, where actress Anne Heche crashed her vehicle.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
Share via

“A car just went through my neighbor’s house.”

That’s the first thing a neighbor told the 911 operator after actor Anne Heche crashed her car into a home on South Walgrove Avenue in Mar Vista on Aug. 5.

The shocking audio published Tuesday by TMZ reveals the first moments after the crash, as onlookers try to assess the damage wrought. Neighbors can be heard screaming in the background of the call as the house catches fire and they realize a woman is trapped in the blue Mini Cooper.

“The car went all the way into the house?” the operator asks the man who placed the call.

“Yes, like 10 feet into the house,” the man responds. He adds that the car was going “very fast” because it made it into the second room of the house.

Advertisement

‘This entire situation is tragic,’ said the woman whose Mar Vista home caught fire after Anne Heche crashed into it. The actor died from her injuries.

The caller becomes more anxious as he realizes a fire has broken out, making it impossible for him to reach Heche in the car.

“Can you safely get next to that person that’s in the car?” the operator asks him.

“There’s a fire. There’s a fire,” the man responds.

The operator tells him to get out of the house and make sure everyone else can get out, then asks if it’s possible to get the person trapped in the car out.

“No,” the man responds. “It’s a big fire.”

Some news outlets announced Anne Heche’s death on Friday. Others said she died Sunday. Will more media change the policies on publishing obituaries?

The fire burning in the home took 59 firefighters more than an hour to extinguish fully. No one in the home was injured.

Advertisement

Heche was declared legally dead on Friday.

A law enforcement source told The Times that a blood test showed Heche had cocaine in her system after the crash.

Heche, who was 53, was being treated at the Grossman Burn Center before she died.

“The news of Anne Heche passing is devastating,” said Lynne Mishele, the woman whose house Heche crashed into, in an Instagram video. “Her family and her friends and her children especially really have suffered a great loss, and my heart goes out for them. This entire situation is tragic, and there really are just no words.”

Advertisement