‘He returned from the brink’: Chevy Chase was in eight days in a coma during Covid pandemic.
Chevy Chase endured a “potentially fatal” heart failure that led to him being placed in an medically induced coma amid the global health crisis, per details from a recent documentary about the American actor and comedian.
Featured 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 on two occasions, spent a total of five full weeks in the hospital.
“Something was wrong, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy; 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 daughter, his daughter: “His return is uncertain. We are unsure how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.”
“After regaining consciousness, all he could do was use his vocal cords,” she stated further. “He has essentially been resurrected.”
The actor personally has stated that he has suffered recall difficulties since his hospital stay, and in the film he cannot remember some of his past professional and personal disputes, including a physical altercation with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live dressing room.
He expressed he was “hurt” by his absence from the milestone special of SNL recently, at which he was in the audience but not featured.
“Honestly, it was quite upsetting,” he said. “I haven't spoken about this until now. But I assumed that I could have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett Morris and Laraine were called up, I was puzzled as to why I was not. I wasn't invited. Why was I excluded?”
Now 82, Chase, almost died in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an accident which triggered a period of depression.
