‘He was brought back from the edge’: The comedy legend endured eight days in a medically induced coma during Covid pandemic.
The famed comedian experienced a “near fatal” heart failure that caused him being placed in an medically induced coma during the pandemic, according to a new documentary project about the American actor and comedian.
The film, titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who emceed the Oscars twice, spent a total of five full weeks in the medical facility.
“He wasn't right, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we headed to the ER. His heart gave out. During those years he was drinking, he got 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 advising his daughter, Caley: “He may not recover. We don’t know how present he’ll be. Get ready for the worst.”
“Upon waking, all he was able to do was use his vocal cords,” she added. “He has essentially returned from the dead.”
The actor personally has stated that he has suffered recall difficulties since his hospital stay, and in the documentary he does not recollect some of his past on-set and backstage controversies, including a fistfight with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live dressing room.
The comedian noted he was “upset” by his absence from the 50th-anniversary show of SNL earlier this year, at which he was in the crowd but not participating.
“Honestly, it was quite upsetting,” he said. “I'm only now voicing this. But I expected that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett and Laraine Newman went on the stage, I was wondering as to why I was not. There was no invitation. Why was I excluded?”
Chase, 82, came close to death in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which triggered a period of clinical depression.