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

The famed comedian endured a “potentially fatal” heart failure that caused him being placed in an medically induced coma amid the global health crisis, according to a new documentary project about the American actor and comedian.

Featured in 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 full weeks in the medical facility.

“He wasn't right, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he was diagnosed with 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 state of unconsciousness for more than a week, before cautioning his daughter, Caley: “His return is uncertain. We don’t know how cognizant he’ll be. You must prepare for the worst.”

“After regaining consciousness, all he was able to do was use his vocal cords,” she continued. “He has basically been resurrected.”

He himself has said that he has dealt with memory problems since his hospitalisation, and in the project he fails to recall some of his past professional and personal disputes, including a fistfight with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.

The comedian noted he was “upset” by his exclusion from the 50th-anniversary show of SNL recently, at which he was in the audience but not on stage.

“Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he said. “I haven't spoken about this until now. But I expected that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When former castmates Garrett and Laraine went on the stage, I was curious as to why I was not. There was no invitation. Why was I left aside?”

Chase, 82, almost died in 1980 when he was subjected to an electrical shock on the set of Modern Problems, an incident which triggered a period of depression.