‘He has come back from the dead’: The comedy legend was in eight days in a coma during the health crisis.

Chevy Chase endured a “potentially fatal” cardiac event that resulted in him being put into an induced coma in 2021, as revealed in a recent documentary about the American actor and comedian.

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, remained in care for five full weeks in the hospital.

“Something was wrong, 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 was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy; which is 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 over a week, before advising his daughter, Caley: “He may not recover. We don’t know 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 practically come back from the dead.”

The actor personally has said that he has experienced recall difficulties since his hospitalisation, and in the documentary he does not recollect some of his past professional and personal disputes, including a fistfight with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live green room.

He expressed he was “hurt” by his absence from the 50th anniversary special of SNL this year, at which he was in attendance but not participating.

“Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I assumed that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett Morris and Laraine took the stage, I was puzzled as to why I was not. I wasn't invited. Why was I overlooked?”

The 82-year-old, nearly lost his life in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an accident which precipitated a period of severe depression.