Newly released 911 audio captures Zach Hickerson’s desperate CPR effort after he found Hayden Panettiere unresponsive at a South Carolina Airbnb, an accidental overdose that ended the actress’s life at 36.
Page Six detailed the call after CBS News obtained the recording, laying bare the final minutes before first responders pronounced the “Heroes” and “Nashville” star dead on Aug. 16.
Zach Hickerson, brother of Panettiere’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson, said he had just returned from church when he found her unresponsive. He could not find a defibrillator. He told the dispatcher he did not think she was breathing. Then he followed orders and kept working until help took over.
She was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:32 p.m. local time. The Greenville County Coroner’s Office ruled the manner of death an accident. Page Six confirmed the cause: the toxic effects of 4-ANPP, fentanyl, methocarbamol, alprazolam, and quetiapine. Officials found no signs of trauma that would have contributed.
The audio is raw and brief. Zach’s first reaction was pure shock.
Zach said:
“Oh god, oh my god.”
When asked about breathing, he answered:
“No, I don’t think so.”
The dispatcher did not waste a second.
The dispatcher told him:
“OK, we need to start CPR.”
Then came the instructions:
“I’m going to tell you how to do CPR, OK? We’re gonna start with ventilation first.”
Zach stayed on the line and performed CPR until first responders arrived and took over. That is the full verified sequence from the call and the reporting around it. No miracle. No recovery at the house.
The New York Post reported that dispatch audio described an unresponsive woman in cardiac arrest after a suspected overdose at a Greenville, South Carolina apartment, with the call placed at 1:51 p.m. Sunday. Paramedics attempted resuscitation and advanced cardiac life support. Police said there were no signs of foul play, and an autopsy was planned.
A police report previously obtained by Page Six said Brian Hickerson gave officers a “bag of medication” she had been taking. The public record does not list every pill in that bag. The toxicology findings later did the heavier lifting: fentanyl and 4-ANPP among the substances tied to her death, along with methocarbamol, alprazolam, and quetiapine.
Coroner information obtained by Page Six also stated that Panettiere had allegedly overdosed and entered rehab before she died. Exact dates for that earlier episode were not spelled out in the available reporting. The final ruling still stood on its own: accident, toxic effects, no contributing trauma.
Panettiere had been candid for years about opioid and alcohol addiction and about postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, with then-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko. Their engagement ended in 2018. He received full custody of Kaya, now described as 11.
In 2015, on “Live with Kelly and Michael,” she pushed back against people who treat postpartum illness as imaginary or “just hormones.”
She said then:
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding, there’s a lot of people out there that think it’s not real, that’s it not true, that it’s something that’s made up in their minds, that, ‘Oh, it’s hormones.’”
She added that women need real support because the condition is “completely uncontrollable,” “really painful,” and “really scary.” In 2022, speaking to People about the custody decision, she called it “the hardest thing I ever had to do,” and said she wanted to be a good mom, “and sometimes that means letting them go.”
Those older statements do not explain the chemistry on the final toxicology report. They do show a woman who named her struggles in public long before Aug. 16. Fentanyl does not care about candor, rehab stints, or good intentions. It kills on contact with a bad dose.
Her father, Skip Panettiere, confirmed the death the same day and asked the public to step back.
Skip said:
“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.”
He continued:
“We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.”
That request is simple and fair. A 36-year-old mother is gone. A brother-in-law’s brother did what the dispatcher told him to do. First responders finished a fight that was already lost by the time they hit the door.
America has heard versions of this call too many times, fentanyl in the mix, an accident ruling, a family left with silence where a voice used to be. Soft policy and a poisoned supply chain keep writing the same ending. Hayden Panettiere’s last hour should not be entertainment. It should be a warning that still is not being heeded.
