‘He has come back from the dead’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a medically induced coma during the health crisis.
Chevy Chase suffered a “life-threatening” cardiac event that resulted in him being put into an medically induced coma in 2021, per details from a new documentary project about the American actor and comedian.
Featured in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who emceed the Oscars on two occasions, remained in care for five weeks in the hospital.
“Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we headed 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 state of unconsciousness for over a week, before warning his child, his daughter: “His return is uncertain. We are unsure how cognizant he’ll be. You must prepare for the worst.”
“Upon waking, all he could do was use his voice,” she continued. “He has basically returned from the dead.”
Chase himself has said that he has suffered cognitive issues since his medical ordeal, and in the film he does not recollect some of his past on-set and backstage incidents, including a fistfight with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.
Chase said he was “disappointed” by his omission from the 50th-anniversary show of SNL earlier this year, at which he was in the crowd but not participating.
“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “I haven't spoken about this until now. But I thought that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett and Laraine Newman were called up, I was puzzled as to why I was not. There was no invitation. Why was I excluded?”
Now 82, Chase, came close to death in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which triggered a period of depression.
