The woman whose rented home was destroyed in actor Anne Heche’s fiery car crash last week has addressed the incident and thanked people around the world for their support.
Lynne Mishele’s home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista went up in flames Friday after Heche crashed her car into it. The Emmy-winning actor is in a coma following the collision, and she reportedly had cocaine in her system at the time of the crash.
“I’m still recovering and trying to figure out up from down, but I did want to send a huge, huge thank you to everybody from all over the world for the overwhelming amount of love and compassion and generosity and kindness that people have shown over the past week,” Mishele said in a video posted to her Instagram business account Thursday.
“It’s obviously been the most insane, traumatic time,” she added.
Mishele, her dogs Bree and Rueban, and her tortoise, Marley, all escaped the ordeal unharmed. She showed her pups on camera Thursday and said “they want to say thank you so much for cheering them on.” Her tortoise is staying with a friend, she said. “Marley says ‘Hi’ from the Valley,” she told viewers.
Mishele’s lawyer had previously said in a statement that she was “devastated by what happened to her on Friday — not only because she and her pets almost lost their lives but because all of her property, including items of profound sentimental value, were destroyed.”
Some of her neighbors started a GoFundMe page for her over the weekend, which has surpassed its $100,000 goal by more than $30,000. The page said that Mishele and her pets had “very narrowly escaped physical harm” but that she had lost a lifetime of possessions as well as her business equipment, clothing and basic necessities.
“A kind and generous person, Lynne is always first to offer help to others. Today we are asking the community to come together and help Lynne start over,” it said.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
