Orange is the New Black star Michelle Hurst has reportedly woken from a medically induced coma after 16 days.

Hurst, who plays Miss Claudette in the wildly popular prison drama, had suffered a serious car accident just before Christmas. The actress was put in a medically induced coma so doctors can perform surgeries on near her spine.

The actress remains at the intensive care unit at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital in North Carolina.

A fundraising page for the actress has been set up to help the actress with the medical bills and lost income during her time off work.

Piper Kerman, the author who wrote the book that the Netflix prison drama is based on, tweeted: "Michelle, AKA "Miss Claudette" RT ATeamOITNB: Please RT Michelle Hurst was in a bad car accident & she needs our help."

The original goal of $5000 has been reached and donations have reached $9,562 at time of writing.

The fundraising page has been updated with a statement which reads: "Michelle Hurst was in a bad car accident just before the holidays. She had major injuries so the doctors put her in a medically induced coma to avoid movement while they did multiple surgeries near her spine. She is out of the coma (after 16 days) and has opened her eyes! We can't send flowers yet because she is in ICU at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital. So we have set up a fundraising page."

All the money will go through Michelle's sister to help pay for her medical expenses & time off of work. 

Michelle Hurst plays Miss Claudette in OITNB, who was sent to prison for running an illegal immigration and child-labour cleaning service.

Filming for the highly anticipated season 2 of the Netflix prison drama has been completed and post-production is already underway. The popular original prison drama is slated to launch on Netflix after the launch of House of Cards' second season, which will be on February 14, 2014.