‘He was brought back from the edge’: The comedy legend endured eight days in a medically induced coma during the health crisis.
The famed comedian endured a “potentially fatal” heart failure that caused him being put into an induced coma in 2021, according to a new film about the comedy star.
The film, titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the legend of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who hosted the Oscars twice, spent a total of five weeks in the hospital.
“There was a problem, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we went to the ER. His heart stops. 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 out with each beat.”
Physicians subsequently induced him into a state of unconsciousness for over a week, before cautioning his child, Caley: “We might not get him back. We don’t know how aware he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.”
“Upon waking, all he could do was use his vocal cords,” she added. “He has basically been resurrected.”
He himself has stated that he has suffered cognitive issues since his medical ordeal, and in the documentary he fails to recall some of his past professional and personal controversies, including a fistfight with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live green room.
The comedian noted he was “disappointed” by his exclusion from the 50th anniversary special of SNL this year, at which he was in the crowd but not featured.
“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I thought that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett and Laraine went on the stage, I was puzzled as to why I wasn't. No one asked me to. Why was I excluded?”
Chase, 82, 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 severe depression.
