New information has been released by the Los Angeles Police Department providing further background on the factors involved in Anne Heche's near fatal car crash last week. While it was widely speculated that Heche had been under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash, tests of her blood performed at the hospital show signs of cocaine and fentanyl, according to TMZ.
Heche is still considered to be in critical condition following her crash last Friday, and a spokesperson says she is suffering from a "significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention."
There is some uncertainty as to what hospital-administered drugs factored in to Heche's blood tests, according to LAPD Public Information Officer Jeff Lee in a statement made to Los Angeles Times, so a second test will be administered with the hope of receiving those final results in 30 to 90 days.
On Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported that an officer for the LAPD had confirmed an investigation on the details of the crash, which took place on the 1700 block of South Walgrove Avenue in Mar Vista, a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, and that a search warrant had been obtained to test Heche's blood as part of that investigation.
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As of the time of this post, Heche has not been charged with any crime in relation to her crash, which completely destroyed the exterior and interior of a home owned by Jennifer Durand, who learned of the incident via a call from her tenant, Lynne Mishele.
"Lynne called me and asked me if I was sitting down, and then told me a car had crashed through the home and it was on fire," says Durand in a quote to People. "She could barely speak so it took a few minutes to really understand what was happening."
"When I arrived, we hugged and cried a lot. In that moment, I was just so relieved and grateful that she and her animals had survived this," Durand continues. "Nothing could have prepared me for what the house looked like . . . "The firefighters helped us sift through it — I can't accurately describe how that feels," she says.
Update: On December 6, 2022, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner issued a report that "there were no active drugs found in actress Anne Heche's system at the time of her car crash in August," per an update from CNN. The coroner's report now clarifies that "certain drugs were detected from prior use through a urine and blood test but were determined to be inactive at the time of the accident."
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