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

Chevy Chase experienced a “life-threatening” cardiac event that resulted in him being put into an induced coma amid the global health crisis, per details from a new film about the comedy star.

The film, titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star of movies such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series, who hosted the Oscars on two occasions, spent a total of five full weeks in the hospital.

“Something was wrong, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stopped. During those years he was drinking, he developed cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood out with each beat.”

Doctors then placed him into a state of unconsciousness for over a week, before warning his daughter, 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 vocal cords,” she added. “He has basically returned from the dead.”

He himself has stated that he has suffered recall difficulties since his hospital stay, and in the film he fails to recall some of his past on-set and backstage controversies, including a physical altercation with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live green room.

The comedian noted he was “disappointed” by his exclusion from the milestone special of SNL this year, at which he was in the audience but not participating.

“Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he said. “I haven't spoken about this until now. But I assumed that I should have been on the stage too with all the other actors. When co-stars Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman took the stage, I was puzzled as to why I didn’t. There was no invitation. Why was I overlooked?”

Chase, 82, almost died in 1980 when he was electrocuted on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which led to a period of severe depression.