Days before the new documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, premieres on January 1 on CNN, news outlets are reporting on an alarming portion of the presentation that discusses how doctors put Chase into a coma for around eight days after he experienced heart failure during the pandemic. Previously, it was reported that Chevy Chase, now 82 years old, spent five weeks in the hospital due to undisclosed heart issues. “[He] has basically come back from the dead. He had heart failure,” Chase’s daughter, Caley Chase, said in the documentary.
What led to Chase going to the ER?
“Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stops,” Chase’s wife, Jayni Chase, said. “During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood out with each beat.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, Cardiomyopathy is a chronic disease that can lead to heart failure and other serious conditions.
“They decided to put him into a coma for maybe eight days,” revealed Chase’s longtime friend, Peter Aaron. “That’s pretty rough on the body.”
There was a chance that Chase would die
“The doctor had warned us: ‘We might not get him back. We don’t know how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.’ He woke up; all he could do was use his voice,” Caley continued. She knew her dad was the same old Chevy Chase when a nurse came in to rearrange some medical equipment: “She said, ‘I’m going to have to put this in here.’ And he said, ‘That’s what she said.’”
Discussing repercussions from the incident, Chase says aspects of his memory are spotty. “According to the doctors, my memory would be shot from it. That’s what’s happened here.”
Chase on the consequences of the procedure
As a byproduct of these memory gaps, Chase says it’s challenging to recall on-set disputes he engaged in while on the sets of Saturday Night Live and Community.
“Heart failure is what it is. I’m fine now,” he said. “It’s just that it affects your memory; the doctors have told me that. So I have to be reminded of things.”
CNN’s new documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, airs on New Year’s Day, January 1.
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