The famed comedian endured a “near fatal” cardiac event that caused him being put into an induced coma in 2021, as revealed in a new documentary project about the entertainment icon.
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 twice, was hospitalized for five weeks in the hospital.
“He wasn't right, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they are unable to pump as much blood out with each beat.”
Doctors then placed him into a coma for eight days, before cautioning his daughter, Caley: “We might not get him back. We are unsure how present he’ll be. You must prepare for the worst.”
“Upon waking, all he could do was use his voice,” she continued. “He has essentially come back from the dead.”
The actor personally has revealed that he has experienced recall difficulties since his hospital stay, and in the project he cannot remember some of his past on-set and backstage incidents, including a physical altercation with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.
He expressed he was “disappointed” by his absence from the 50th anniversary special of SNL earlier this year, at which he was in the audience but not on stage.
“Honestly, it was quite upsetting,” he said. “I'm only now voicing this. But I thought that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman went on the stage, I was puzzled as to why I didn’t. There was no invitation. Why was I left aside?”
Chase, 82, nearly lost his life in 1980 when he was electrocuted on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which led to a period of clinical depression.
Lena Hoffmann is a seasoned journalist with a passion for uncovering stories that matter, specializing in German current affairs and digital media trends.
