Actress Demi Moore was convulsing and "burning up" after taking an unidentified drug when emergency services were called earlier this week, according to the 911 call released Friday.
During the 10-minute call friends tell the 911 operator that the 49-year-old, who split from her younger husband Ashton Kutcher in November after his alleged infidelity, has "been having some issues lately."
"She's convulsing so we're holding her down," said one of three people who take turns to speak to the operator, repeatedly asking him to send an ambulance urgently to her Beverly Hills home.
"Demi, can you hear me?" a woman says at one point, apparently talking to the star. "Yes, she's squeezing hands," she then tells the operator, but adds: "She can't speak."
The 911 call was released, and posted on the TMZ celebrity news website three days after Moore's spokesman said she was suffering from "exhaustion," although TMZ said she had been rushed to hospital for drug abuse.
The website reported she had been doing "whip its" — in which nitrous oxide, or happy gas, is inhaled from a silver canister commonly found in whipped cream cans.
A source told TMZ the actress began convulsing after consuming large amounts of the gas and having a bad reaction to it.
Her publicity agents have denied the reports, instead claiming the actress is overly stressed.
"Because of the stresses in her life right now, Demi has chosen to seek professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health," said a statement issued by her publicist on Tuesday.
In the 911 call one woman tells the operator that Moore "smoked something, it's not marijuana but it's similar to incense .. and she seems to be having convulsions of some sort."
She described the actress as "semi-conscious," saying she was "sort of shaking, convulsing, burning up."
"She's been having some issues lately with some other stuff, but I don't know what she's been taking .. There's been some stuff recently that we're all just finding out."
Towards the end of the call, a male friend reports that "she seems to have calmed down a little," adding: "Now she's breathing fine, she's not convulsing, .. She seems calm," as paramedics arrive at the house.
The 911 call was available on TMZ's website with sensitive parts redacted, or beeped out -- notably Moore's Beverly Hills address — although initially it posted a version which appeared to be unredacted.
Moore and 33-year-old Kutcher announced their separation in November, after months of media reports about problems between the couple, who married in 2005. She had earlier been married to actor Bruce Willis for 13 years.
The actress made her name in movies including "Ghost" (1990), "A Few Good Men" (1992), "Indecent Proposal" (1993) and "G.I. Jane" (1997), as well as a 1991 Vogue magazine cover photo of her heavily pregnant.
Kutcher is best known for TV shows including "That 70s Show" and "Punk'd," and last year replaced troubled actor Charlie Sheen in the popular comedy "Two and a Half Men."
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