Anne Heche had been trapped inside her burning car for around 45 minutes after her fatal crash into a home on August 5.
Audio recordings from the Los Angeles Fire Department obtained by NBC4's I-Team reveal it took Los Angeles firefighters three-quarters of an hour to reach the 53-year-old actress.
It was said to have taken 20 minutes for the firefighters to find Heche in her vehicle and another 20 minutes to remove the car from the fiery Mar Vista home so that she could be taken to the hospital.
"Given the heavy fire and smoke conditions, it wasn't that you could clearly see into the vehicle or clearly be able to access it," LAFD Deputy Chief Richard Fields told NBC4. He went on to mention that Heche was not found behind the wheel, adding: "I will say that where the person was in the vehicle was not in the driver's seat, but on the floorboard of the passenger seat."
According to the outlet, LAFD first arrived at the location at 11:01 AM local time, with one member of the team discovering "a person stuck inside the vehicle." Fields told NBC4 that "the patient that was identified initially was the person that was in the home" and not Heche.
At 11:18 AM, a firefighter working to control the fire said that no person was inside the building aside from the homeowner. They added: "We do have no patients at this time."
An incident commander then asked about the driver at 11:22 AM. They said: "Let me clear this up: So you do have a patient in the car?"
The actress was found about three minutes later at 11:25 AM "We have identified one patient," a first responder said. "Inaccessible at this time… pushed up against the floorboard."
The Six Days Seven Nights actor was pulled from the wreckage with the help of heavy towing equipment around 11:49 AM before she was taken into an ambulance for treatment. A firefighter said at the time: "We have one patient in the auto, being assessed, about to be loaded up on the gurney for transport."
After the tragic accident, narcotics were detected in Heche's systems. She was in a coma from August 5 until her death on August 12. According to a coroner's report, Heche died of smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.
