NBA Republic
American actress Anne Heche, 53, was involved in a ghastly car crash last week and got severely injured. The horrific crash sent the actress into coma, after being hospitalized in a local hospital in Los Angeles.
Anne Heche suffered several injuries including fractures, third degree burns, and anoxic brain injury. The burns were as a result of the fire that the crash started.
On Friday morning, August 12, the family of the actress, in a press statement, said they are not expecting Heche to survive the accident. They said this due to the severity of injuries she sustained in the car which is being attributed to intoxication.
However, as the family revealed that the actress also suffered an injury called anoxic brain injury; fans have been eager to know more about the injury. Maybe the term is new to them.
So, in this article, we will talk about that kind of brain injury.
What is anoxic brain injury
The anoxic brain injury, also referred to as anoxia, occurs when human brain cells get damaged due to a total lack of oxygen. So, it can said that oxygen stopped getting to Anne Heche’s brain cells soon after she crashed her car.
The brain cells are immediately in trouble if oxygen stops getting to them. According to medical experts, the cells can just die off within four minutes of lack of oxygen. Yes, four minutes!
Each additional passing second results in cumulative brain cell death. Anoxic brain injuries are a common childbirth injuries. However, they also result from drowning or from cases of suffocation which indeed Anne Heche suffered from the crash.
To continue, medical experts sometimes associate anoxic brain injury with hypoxic brain injuries. But while an anoxic brain injury results from a complete lack of oxygen to the brain cells, a hypoxic brain injury results from a reduced supply of oxygen to the brain cells.
The could be caused by cardiac arrest, strangulation during childbirth, and suffocation as a result of not getting enough oxygen to breath, as in the case of Anne Heche.
Other causes of the injury are; brain tumor, drowning, the excessive use of hard drugs such as cocaine and opioids. The rest include: electrocution, inhalation of carbon monoxide, and poisoning.
We are sure that having read this article, you’re now familiar with the Anne Heche brain injury.
Source: NBA Republic