It now appears that actress Anne Hech will not survive the injuries she sustained during a horrific car crash. After she was pronounced brain dead, her family has made the difficult decision to take her off life support.

Actress Heche (Donnie Brasco, I Know What You Did Last Summer, My Friend Dahmer) was involved in a tragic accident in which her car slammed into a residential home in Los Angeles and burst into flames. It took some time for firefighters to wade through the wreckage of the burning home and rescue her.

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Over the past week, Heche's condition has been unclear, but reports now seem to confirm that the actress has been declared brain dead and is not expected to survive. It appears she suffered from severe burns and an anoxic brain injury while trapped in her car, and slipped into a coma shortly after being carried to the ambulance. A representative of Heche’s family and friends released the following statement to Deadline: “We want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers for Anne's recovery and thank the dedicated staff and wonderful nurses that cared for Anne at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, due to her accident, Anne Heche suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and remains in a coma, in critical condition. She is not expected to survive.”

Anne Heche Car Accident

According to Deadline, Heche's family has decided to take the actress off life support. Doctors are now only waiting to determine if any of her organs can be donated, per Heche's wishes. The exact cause of the tragic car crash is still undetermined. A video posted by a resident of the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles where the crash occurred shows Heche's blue Mini Cooper careening down the street at extreme speed minutes beforehand. An additional video published by TMZ appears to show Heche involved in another collision earlier that morning, where she crashed her car into a garage in an apartment complex and sped away while residents yelled at her.

According to a statement released on Wednesday, LAPD performed a blood test at the hospital which “revealed the presence of narcotics.” However, the statement went on, “additional testing is required because we have to rule out any substances that were administered by medical treatment.” Heche is known to have struggled with drugs and with mental illness in the past, so many have speculated if these played a part in the accident.

Heche's final project was the Lifetime movie Girl in Room 13, which depicts the horrors of the human trafficking industry. According to Lifetime Networks' head of programming Amy Winter, the film is still slated to release in September.

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Source: Deadline