‘He returned from the brink’: Chevy Chase endured eight days in a medically induced coma during the health crisis.
Chevy Chase suffered a “near fatal” cardiac event that led to him being put into an medically induced coma during the pandemic, as revealed in a recent documentary about the entertainment icon.
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 on two occasions, remained in care for five weeks in the medical facility.
“There was a problem, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stopped. During those years he was drinking, he developed cardiomyopathy; which is when the heart muscles get weaker, and they are unable to pump as much blood through the body with each beat.”
Physicians subsequently induced him into a coma for more than a week, before cautioning his daughter, Caley: “His return is uncertain. We don’t know how cognizant he’ll be. You must prepare for the worst.”
“Upon waking, all he could do was use his voice,” she stated further. “He has basically been resurrected.”
He himself has revealed that he has experienced memory problems since his hospitalisation, and in the film he does not recollect some of his past on-set and backstage incidents, including a physical altercation with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live green room.
Chase said he was “hurt” by his omission from the 50th-anniversary show of SNL this year, at which he was in the crowd but not participating.
“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I thought that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman took the stage, I was curious as to why I wasn't. There was no invitation. Why was I overlooked?”
Chase, 82, nearly lost his life in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an accident which triggered a period of severe depression.
