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Doctors treating injured Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher are reducing his sedation to prepare to bring him out of a coma, his manager says.
This step will allow the "waking up process" to start, Sabine Kehm said in a statement.
But bringing the seven-times champion out of the coma "could take a long time", she added.
Schumacher suffered a severe head injury in a skiing accident in the French Alps on 29 December.
He was put into a medically induced coma by his doctors at a clinic in Grenoble following operations to remove blood clots from his brain.
Doctors have kept the 45-year-old German asleep to help reduce the swelling.
Ms Kehm was approached by the media for comment on Schumacher's condition on Wednesday - exactly a month after his crash. She said then that his condition remained "stable".
In her statement on Thursday, she said it had been agreed to communicate details of his sedation "only once this process was consolidated".
Michael Schumacher
Born: 3 January 1969
First GP win: Belgium 1992
Last GP win: China 2006
Races started: 303
Wins: 91 (155 podium finishes)
Championships: 7 (1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004)
The statement again included an appeal by Schumacher's family for privacy for them and for his doctors, while at the same time expressing "sincere appreciation for the worldwide sympathy".
At his bedside since the accident, the family have received hundreds of letters and gifts from around the world.
Earlier this month, investigators probing the accident said Schumacher had been going at the speed of "a very good skier" at the time of his crash in the resort of Meribel.
He had been skiing 8m off-piste when he fell and hit a rock, investigators said.
Experts reconstructed events leading up to the crash after examining Schumacher's skiing equipment and viewing footage filmed on a camera attached to his helmet.
Schumacher retired from racing in 2012 after a 19-year career.
He won two titles with Benetton, in 1994 and 1995, before switching to Ferrari in 1996 and going on to win five straight titles from 2000.
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25963926 ]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25963926[/url]
Best of luck to him.
Sky News understands he has been "responding to simple instructions".
Sounds reasonably promising, if Sky Sports sources are to be believed.
i wish him well for a full recovery.
This is good news so far.
the consensus is he'll have severe damage for the rest of his life, to what extent is unknown - even if it was a man on the street however, i'll still wish him a full and happy life whatever happens.
Best of luck to him and anyone else in similar conditions - healing vibes and fingers crossed. Skied that bit too many times to not think about it 🙁
Good news, best of luck to him and his family
Looking forward to mantastics contribution to this thread...
Can't help but be reminded of [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Pearce_%28snowboarder%29 ]Kevin Pearce[/url] and the documentary about his crash [url= http://thecrashreel.com/store/?index.php ]The Crash Reel[/url]
I think he is still sop pleased with his last effort that he hopefully will stay away - he bragged about it on another thread - never seen the thrill in being offensive - its not hard to do tbh and seems pointless
Hopefully he will make a recovery
THM - thankfully the belt tightening for private school did not mean forgoing the ski trips eh 😉
Radio 4 did a brief piece this morning on it circa 8:50 ish FWIW
Good luck and fingers crossed.
Ditto bigyinn
Conflicting reports about whether he is doing as well as Sky said, that came from a French newspaper and provoked a denial.His kids are too young for him to be leaving them,hope he gets better.
My old man was put into a medically induced coma following post op infection complications . He suffered froma twisted colon and left it far too long before seeing a doctor ( being a bloke ) . The hospital tried several methods to unkink him , but in the end operated . Op did nt go well and he got into trouble pretty quickly .
I think they used morphine and noradrenline plus huge amounts of anti - biotics. He was kept ina coma for about 3 weeks in ICU , with a heart rate of over 100bpm to pump all the drugs round apparently. It was weird seeing him with eye lids flickering , and some finger movements, being there with mum was hard as she was willing him to wake up , not fully comprehending it was a drug cocktail keeping him asleep.
He was 'woken up' after around 3 weeks but couldnt talk due to ventilator and tracheotomy. Showed full cognitive functions and could understand and 'talk' via a scrabble board thing. No head injury obviuosly just post op infections .
A week later and out of ICU and in a recovery ward had a massive heart attack and died almost instantly at 2.30am.just when mum thought the worst was over and he would be home soon. Still stuff happens and this was years ago and we've all moved on since.
Sincerly hope MS comes through this and recovers to pre accident condition over time. In the back of my mind I can recall another F1 driver being kept under for similar reasons about the time of Senna / Ratzenburger but cannot recall the name or circumstances .
stm, thats awful about your dad. Life is so cruel at times.
Nothing more that I can add to bigyinns post 🙁
Sincerly hope MS comes through this and recovers to pre accident condition over time. In the back of my mind I can recall another F1 driver being kept under for similar reasons about the time of Senna / Ratzenburger but cannot recall the name or circumstances .
I would guess Wendlinger after his pretty heavy crash in Monaco. I saw the helmet and the crash damage was quite horrendous. Although he "fully recovered" he was never the same driver again and his career petered out so I guess the recovery wasn't full but I'm fairly sure him, his family and friends were just happy he had the chance to try to restart his career at all.
I often wonder when a driver experiences that sort of crash, whether they can fully commit when driving again, assuming they fully recovered. Although thats probably a discussion for another thread.