TMZ has obtained information about Natasha Richardson's ambulance ride in New York to Lenox Hill Hospital -- she was "unconscious," her pupils "non-reactive," her skin was "pale" and she was suffering from "major head trauma." We're told her husband Liam Neeson held her hand the entire time and caressed her face as he sat in silence.

"There is no chance," a family friend told PEOPLE on Tuesday night. "It is a fact that her heart is beating but she is brain dead." Her dire condition - doctors described it to those close to Richards as "leakage of blood between the brain and skull," the friend says - has the actress's family coming to grips with potentially having to make an unthinkably difficult decision. "It's not official yet," says the friend, "but they basically will detach her."