Witnesses cited by TMZ late Friday said the Wag the Dog and Donnie Brasco star was seen falling into the garage of an apartment building in her Mini Cooper, only to be driven away as bystanders tried to help her. He then allegedly plowed into a nearby home in Mar Vista a short time later, starting a fire that engulfed the vehicle and spread throughout the home. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it took 65 minutes for 59 firefighters to extinguish the “stubborn flames” and “rescue an adult female who was inside the vehicle.” Fox 11’s Stu Mandel, who watched the rescue operation in a helicopter above the crash site, said, “If there’s anyone alive in there, that would be a miracle.” “The house was tons of smoke. I think they used the crane to move the car to get the driver out. It was crazy,” a witness was quoted as saying by NBC Los Angeles. Images released by Fox 11 show a woman, identified by the news outlet as Heche, being carried on a stretcher. The Los Angeles Times, citing law enforcement officials, reports that Heche was the registered owner of the vehicle. Heche representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “We really had a multi-faceted incident here,” Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Eric Scott was quoted as saying. “We had a major traffic crash, we had a woman trapped in it, we had a car that caught fire and then we had a house that had a major red-tagged fire. At this point it has been destroyed.” Hetse is now in critical condition, according to the fire department, which did not identify her by name. No other injuries were reported.
