‘He was brought back from the edge’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a coma during Covid pandemic.

Chevy Chase endured a “potentially fatal” heart failure that caused him being put into an 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 star of films 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 couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we headed to the ER. His heart stops. 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 eight days, before advising his daughter, his daughter: “He may not recover. We are unsure how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.”

“Upon waking, all he was able to do was use his vocal cords,” she added. “He has essentially come back from the dead.”

He himself has revealed that he has suffered recall difficulties since his medical ordeal, and in the film he does not recollect some of his past on-set and backstage disputes, including a fight with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.

The comedian noted he was “disappointed” by his absence from the 50th anniversary special of SNL earlier this year, at which he was in attendance but not participating.

“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I assumed that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett and Laraine went on the stage, I was wondering as to why I didn’t. I wasn't invited. Why was I excluded?”

Now 82, Chase, 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.