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

Chevy Chase endured a “life-threatening” cardiac event that led to him being placed in an induced coma amid the global health crisis, according to a new documentary project about the entertainment icon.

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

“He wasn't right, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart gave out. During those years he was drinking, he developed cardiomyopathy; 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 advising his daughter, Caley: “He may not recover. We don’t know how cognizant he’ll be. Get ready for the worst.”

“When he woke up, all he could do was use his vocal cords,” she added. “He has essentially come back from the dead.”

Chase himself has revealed that he has dealt with 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 Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live green room.

He expressed he was “upset” by his absence 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 assumed that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett and Laraine were called up, I was puzzled as to why I was not. There was no invitation. Why was I excluded?”

The 82-year-old, came close to death in 1980 when he was shocked by electricity on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which precipitated a period of clinical depression.