‘He returned from the brink’: Chevy Chase spent eight days in a coma during the pandemic.

The famed comedian endured a “near fatal” heart failure that caused him being placed in an medically induced coma during the pandemic, as revealed in a recent documentary about the entertainment icon.

The film, titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the legend of films such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who emceed the Oscars on two occasions, spent a total of five weeks in the medical facility.

“Something was wrong, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we headed to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he developed 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 state of unconsciousness for over a week, before cautioning his child, his daughter: “He may not recover. We don’t know how cognizant he’ll be. Get ready for the worst.”

“After regaining consciousness, all he was able to do was use his vocal cords,” she continued. “He has practically come back from the dead.”

Chase himself has said that he has dealt with recall difficulties since his hospitalisation, and in the film he fails to recall some of his past on-set and backstage controversies, including a fistfight with fellow comedian Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live green room.

Chase said he was “disappointed” by his exclusion from the milestone special of SNL this year, at which he was in the audience but not featured.

“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I assumed that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett Morris and Laraine took the stage, I was curious as to why I wasn't. I wasn't invited. Why was I left aside?”

The 82-year-old, almost died in 1980 when he was electrocuted on the set of Modern Problems, an accident which led to a period of depression.