‘He has come back from the dead’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a coma during Covid pandemic.

The famed comedian experienced a “potentially fatal” heart failure that led to him being put into an induced coma during the pandemic, according to a recent documentary about the comedy star.

Featured in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who hosted the Oscars twice, spent a total of five full weeks in the medical facility.

“Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we went to the ER. His heart stopped. During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood through the body with each beat.”

Physicians subsequently induced him into a coma for eight days, before cautioning his child, his daughter: “He may not recover. We don’t know how cognizant he’ll be. You must prepare for the worst.”

“When he woke up, all he could do was use his voice,” she added. “He has practically returned from the dead.”

He himself has revealed that he has suffered cognitive issues since his hospitalisation, and in the project he does not recollect some of his past professional and personal controversies, including a physical altercation with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.

The comedian noted he was “hurt” by his absence from the milestone special of SNL this year, at which he was in the crowd 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 co-stars Garrett Morris and Laraine went on the stage, I was puzzled as to why I didn’t. No one asked me to. Why was I excluded?”

Now 82, Chase, came close to death in 1980 when he was subjected to an electrical shock on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which led to a period of clinical depression.