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

The famed comedian experienced a “potentially fatal” heart failure that resulted in him being put into an medically induced coma amid the global health crisis, according to a new documentary project about the entertainment icon.

As documented in 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 full weeks in the hospital.

“Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we headed 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 through the body with each beat.”

Physicians subsequently induced him into a coma for eight days, before warning his child, his daughter: “He may not recover. We are unsure how aware he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.”

“After regaining consciousness, all he was able to do was use his voice,” she stated further. “He has practically been resurrected.”

Chase himself has revealed that he has suffered cognitive issues since his hospitalisation, and in the documentary he does not recollect some of his past on-set and backstage controversies, including a physical altercation with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live dressing room.

The comedian noted he was “upset” by his exclusion from the 50th anniversary special of SNL recently, at which he was in the crowd but not featured.

“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “I'm only now voicing this. But I thought that I could have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett and Laraine were called up, I was curious as to why I didn’t. 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 led to a period of clinical depression.