Anne Heche Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Anne Heche will be removed life support and receive an Honor Walk to recognize her organ donation. Us Weekly confirms.
Since Friday, August 12, when her brain activity was absent at 53, the actress had been on life support to keep it beating. While her organs were being evaluated for donation, her body was maintained on life support.
Heche’s life support will be turned off as organs will be harvested for donation on Sunday, August 12, a representative for the Donnie BrascoStar confirms, and Heche will be honored with an Honor Walk.
Just before the organs are procured for donation, hospital staff quietly line the path from the donor’s hospital room to the operating room, paying their respects to the donor for giving others a life-changing gift. Honor Walks are performed by medical facilities that ask the family for consent. Next of kin often accompany the loved one on the journey to the OR.
Heche was killed in a car accident on Friday, August 5. She suffered severe burns and head trauma.
Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that Use on August 5 that the driver — who they did not identify initially — was allegedly speeding while traveling eastbound on Preston Way in Los Angeles. The blue Mini Cooper ran off road as it passed through Walgrove and Preston intersections and collided with a house two stories high.
Heche suffered severe burns when the vehicle caught fire. The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed that Heche was safe. Six Days Seven NightsStar was awake and able answer questions after the fire. It took 59 firefighters over an hours to extinguish the fire.
Her rep said that she had spoken to her one day after the incident. Use that the actress was “currently in stable condition,” but by Monday, August 8, the Dancing With the StarsThe alum was in a coma. “At this time she is in extreme critical condition she has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention,” the representative told Use in a statement. “She is in a coma and has not regained consciousness since shortly after the accident.”
A few days later, doctors confirmed that Heche’s passing was imminent. “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,” the rep told UsIn a statement on behalf of her family, friends and loved ones on Thursday, August 11, Anne Heche said the following: “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.”
Heche was being monitored to “determine” whether her organs were viable for donation, which has “long been her choice,” the rep noted. “Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit. More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love. She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”
The official death of the Ohio native was announced Friday, one week after his crash. “Anne is legally dead according to California law,” a rep for Heche told Us at the time. “Her heart is still beating and she has not been taken off of life support. This is to give OneLegacy Foundation sufficient time to find her. [organ donor] recipients who will be a match.”
Heche is survived in death by her son Homer (20), whom she shared with Coleman LaffoonShe shared her 13-year-old son Atlas with him James Tucker.
