‘He was brought back from the edge’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a medically induced coma during Covid pandemic.
The famed comedian endured a “near fatal” cardiac event that resulted in him being placed in an medically induced coma during the pandemic, as revealed in a new documentary project about the comedy star.
The film, titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the legend of films such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who emceed the Oscars twice, was hospitalized for five full weeks in the medical facility.
“There was a problem, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we went to the ER. His heart gave out. During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy; which is when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood through the body with each beat.”
Medical professionals then put him into a coma for more than a week, before cautioning his daughter, his daughter: “His return is uncertain. We are unsure how aware he’ll be. Get ready for the worst.”
“After regaining consciousness, all he could do was use his vocal cords,” she stated further. “He has practically returned from the dead.”
Chase himself has said that he has suffered recall difficulties since his medical ordeal, and in the film he cannot remember some of his past on-set and backstage disputes, including a fight with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live green room.
He expressed he was “upset” by his absence from the 50th anniversary special of SNL this year, at which he was in the crowd but not featured.
“Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I expected that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett and Laraine Newman took the stage, I was wondering as to why I was not. No one asked me to. Why was I overlooked?”
The 82-year-old, almost died in 1980 when he was subjected to an electrical shock on the set of Modern Problems, an accident which triggered a period of depression.