‘He has come back from the dead’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a coma during the pandemic.
Chevy Chase suffered a “potentially fatal” cardiac event that caused him being placed in an induced coma during the pandemic, per details from a new documentary project about the American actor and comedian.
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 hospital.
“He wasn't right, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we headed to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy; 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 state of unconsciousness for over a week, before cautioning his child, Caley: “His return is uncertain. We are unsure how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.”
“After regaining consciousness, 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 cognitive issues since his hospitalisation, and in the documentary he cannot remember some of his past professional and personal controversies, including a physical altercation with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.
Chase said he was “hurt” by his absence from the milestone special of SNL this year, at which he was in the crowd but not on stage.
“Honestly, it was quite upsetting,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I assumed that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett and Laraine Newman were called up, I was curious as to why I didn’t. I wasn't invited. Why was I left aside?”
Now 82, Chase, nearly lost his life in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an accident which precipitated a period of clinical depression.
