‘He was brought back from the edge’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a medically induced coma during the pandemic.
The famed comedian experienced a “potentially fatal” cardiac event that resulted in him being placed in an medically induced coma in 2021, according to a recent documentary about the entertainment icon.
As documented 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 twice, was hospitalized for 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 stopped. 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 out with each beat.”
Physicians subsequently induced him into a coma for over a week, before advising his child, Caley: “His return is uncertain. We are unsure how cognizant he’ll be. You must prepare for the worst.”
“After regaining consciousness, all he could do was use his voice,” she stated further. “He has practically returned from the dead.”
Chase himself has stated that he has experienced cognitive issues since his hospitalisation, and in the documentary he cannot remember some of his past professional and personal disputes, including a fight with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.
The comedian noted he was “upset” by his absence from the 50th-anniversary show of SNL recently, at which he was in the audience 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 former castmates Garrett Morris and Laraine took the stage, I was puzzled as to why I was not. No one asked me to. Why was I overlooked?”
The 82-year-old, nearly lost his life in 1980 when he was subjected to an electrical shock on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which precipitated a period of severe depression.
