‘He returned from the brink’: The comedy legend was in eight days in a medically induced coma during the health crisis.

The famed comedian experienced a “near fatal” heart failure that caused him being placed in an medically induced coma in 2021, as revealed in a new film about the American actor and comedian.

The film, titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the legend of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who hosted 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 went to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he developed cardiomyopathy; 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 state of unconsciousness for over a week, before warning his child, Caley: “His return is uncertain. We don’t know how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.”

“After regaining consciousness, all he was able to do was use his vocal cords,” she stated further. “He has essentially returned from the dead.”

The actor personally has stated that he has dealt with recall difficulties since his hospitalisation, and in the documentary he does not recollect some of his past professional and personal incidents, including a fistfight with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live dressing room.

The comedian noted he was “hurt” by his absence from the 50th anniversary special of SNL recently, at which he was in attendance but not on stage.

“Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he said. “I'm only now voicing this. But I expected that I could have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman were called up, I was wondering as to why I was not. I wasn't invited. Why was I left aside?”

Chase, 82, almost died in 1980 when he was subjected to an electrical shock on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which led to a period of severe depression.