‘He has come back from the dead’: Chevy Chase endured eight days in a medically induced coma during the health crisis.
Chevy Chase experienced a “potentially fatal” heart failure that led to him being put into an medically induced coma amid the global health crisis, according to a new documentary project about the comedy star.
As documented in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the legend of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who emceed the Oscars twice, spent a total of five 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 stopped. 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.”
Doctors then placed him into a coma for more than a week, before advising his child, his daughter: “He may not recover. We don’t know how cognizant he’ll be. Get ready for the worst.”
“When he woke up, all he was able to do was use his vocal cords,” she stated further. “He has essentially returned from the dead.”
He himself has revealed that he has dealt with recall difficulties since his hospitalisation, and in the documentary he cannot remember some of his past professional and personal controversies, including a fight with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live dressing room.
The comedian noted he was “upset” by his exclusion from the 50th anniversary special of SNL recently, at which he was in the audience 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 former castmates Garrett and Laraine Newman took the stage, I was wondering as to why I didn’t. There was no invitation. Why was I overlooked?”
The 82-year-old, 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 clinical depression.
