‘He has come back from the dead’: The comedy legend endured eight days in a coma during the pandemic.

Chevy Chase suffered a “near fatal” cardiac event that led to him being placed in an medically induced coma amid the global health crisis, per details from a new documentary project about the entertainment icon.

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 weeks in the hospital.

“He wasn't right, and he was unable to describe to me what was wrong. So, we went to the ER. His heart stopped. During those years he was drinking, he developed cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they are unable to pump as much blood through the body with each beat.”

Doctors then placed him into a state of unconsciousness for more than a week, before advising his daughter, Caley: “We might not get him back. 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 added. “He has basically been resurrected.”

Chase himself has stated that he has suffered cognitive issues since his hospitalisation, and in the documentary he fails to recall some of his past on-set and backstage incidents, including a physical altercation with Bill Murray in a Saturday Night Live backstage area.

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

“To be frank, it was disappointing,” he said. “I haven't spoken about this until now. But I thought that I should have 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. No one asked me to. Why was I overlooked?”

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