‘He has come back from the dead’: The comedy legend was in eight days in a coma during the pandemic.
Chevy Chase suffered a “near fatal” heart failure that caused him being placed in an induced coma during the pandemic, according to a new documentary project about the entertainment icon.
Featured in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star of films such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who emceed the Oscars on two occasions, spent a total of five full weeks in the medical facility.
“Something was wrong, 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 was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy; which is when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood through the body with each beat.”
Physicians subsequently induced him into a coma for eight days, before advising his daughter, Caley: “We might not get him back. We are unsure how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.”
“When he woke up, all he could do was use his voice,” she stated further. “He has practically come back from the dead.”
Chase himself has revealed that he has suffered memory problems since his medical ordeal, and in the film he does not recollect some of his past professional and personal disputes, including a physical altercation with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.
Chase said he was “upset” by his exclusion from the 50th anniversary special of SNL recently, at which he was in attendance but not on stage.
“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “I haven't spoken about this until now. But I expected that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman were called up, I was wondering as to why I didn’t. No one asked me to. Why was I overlooked?”
Chase, 82, nearly lost his life in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which led to a period of depression.