Lynne Mishele, the woman whose house was destroyed after the actor Anne Heche drove into it in the car accident that led to her death, is suing Heche’s estate for at least $2m (£1.7m).
Mishele’s Los Angeles rental home and possessions were almost entirely written off in the incident in August, although she and her pets were unharmed.
Heche’s Mini Cooper ploughed through Mishele’s front garden, living room, kitchen, home office, a closet and laundry room before coming to a halt. A fire was then ignited, described in Mishele’s suit as a “towering inferno”.
Heche suffered severe internal injuries and smoke inhalation. Sixty firefighters were unable to free her from the wreckage of her car for at least an hour. She was conscious when taken to hospital but soon after slipped into a coma and was pronounced legally dead on 12 August.
Mishele and her two dogs and a tortoise were escorted to safety by a neighbour. Following the incident, the owners of the house that Mishele was renting raised more than $183,000 for their tenant through a GoFundMe campaign.
After news broke that Heche was brain dead, Mishele posted a short video to Instagram calling it “devastating” and “a great loss”.
She expressed her condolences to Heche’s sons, Homer and Atlas. “My heart goes out for them,” Mishele said. “This entire situation is tragic, and there really are just no words … I’m sending love to everybody involved.”
Last week, lawyers acting for Mishele filed a claim for more than $2m against Heche’s estate, asserting that the actor’s “outrageous conduct and unlawful acts” had left their client homeless, “completely traumatised” and lacking possessions necessary for her everyday life, as well as sentimental objects both real and virtual (her iPad and computers were destroyed).
The claim states that the crash felt like “a record-breaking earthquake had hit, and [Mishele] was right in the middle and on the fault line”. It alleges negligence, trespassing and the infliction of emotional distress on the part of Heche, as well as alleging that blood analysis confirmed the actor had cocaine and fentanyl in her system.
The claim also reports that Mishele is now suffering insomnia, anxiety and depression. Having to leave her house and her “fragile mental health” have left her unable to run her business, which she ran from home.
She is also “unusually startled by hearing loud noises, plagued by nightmares and flashbacks of the incident, terrified of walking outside, and, atop that, without a place to live”.
