Newly released 911 audio reveals the moment Hayden Panettiere’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson’s brother, Zach Hickerson, found the late actress unresponsive.
“Oh, God. Oh, my God, Brian,” Zach can be heard saying, talking to his brother as the call goes through to 911 dispatch, according to audio obtained by CBS News on Wednesday, October 14. “Do [we], like, do CPR or something?”
When the dispatcher comes on the phone, Zach explains what happened, saying, “We walked in after church to my brother and his girlfriend’s apartment, and he woke up, and his girlfriend — she’s unconscious.”
The 911 operator asks, “OK, is she breathing?” to which Zach responds, “No, I don’t think so.”
Zach explains that he doesn’t know whether there is a defibrillator at their apartment complex and then checks again to see whether Panettiere is breathing.
“Is she breathing? Hold on. No,” he says again.
The dispatcher then instructs Zach on how to do CPR and later mouth-to-mouth until the paramedics arrive on scene.
“They’re here,” Zach says as the calls ends.
The new audio call was released nearly two months after Panettiere was discovered unconscious on August 16 in South Carolina and pronounced dead at the scene. She was 36.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden,” her father, Skip Panettiere, said in a statement. “She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen. We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.”
The Greenville, South Carolina, police shared more insight into the circumstances surrounding the Nashville alum’s death, telling NBC News that authorities were “accompanied by EMS personnel” when they “responded to a report of an unresponsive female” around 1:50 p.m. local time.
One month later, the Greenville County Coroner’s Office released Hayden’s official cause of death, stating, “An autopsy was completed by a Board Certified Forensic Pathologist. At autopsy no signs of trauma were discovered that would have contributed to the death.”
According to the September 22 statement, Hayden’s cause of death was ruled as “toxic effects of fentanyl, 4-ANPP, Alprazolam, Methocarbamol, and Quetiapine.” The manner of her death was determined to be an accident.
A rep for the Remember the Titans actress told Us at the time, “The investigation is still ongoing and the case is complex.”
Hayden is survived by her father, Skip, and mother, Lesley Vogel, as well as daughter Kaya, 11, whom she shared with ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko. Her brother, Jansen Panettiere, died in February 2023 at age 28.
