‘He was brought back from the edge’: Chevy Chase endured eight days in a medically induced coma during the pandemic.

Chevy Chase endured a “near fatal” cardiac event that resulted in him being put into an induced coma in 2021, as revealed in a recent documentary about the comedy star.

As documented in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the legend of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who emceed the Oscars on two occasions, spent a total of five weeks in the hospital.

“Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we headed to the ER. His heart gave out. During those years he was drinking, he developed cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood out with each beat.”

Doctors then placed him into a coma for over a week, before cautioning his daughter, his daughter: “His return is uncertain. We are unsure how aware he’ll be. You must prepare for the worst.”

“When he woke up, all he could do was use his vocal cords,” she stated further. “He has essentially returned from the dead.”

Chase himself has said that he has experienced memory problems since his medical ordeal, and in the project he cannot remember some of his past on-set and backstage controversies, including a physical altercation with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.

Chase said he was “hurt” by his absence from the 50th anniversary special of SNL this year, at which he was in the audience but not participating.

“Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he said. “I'm only now voicing this. But I thought that I could have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett and Laraine were called up, I was wondering as to why I wasn't. There was no invitation. Why was I overlooked?”

Now 82, Chase, came close to death in 1980 when he was subjected to an electrical shock on the set of Modern Problems, an accident which precipitated a period of depression.