On 29 December 2013, Schumacher was skiing with his 14-year-old son Mick, descending the Combe de Saulire below the Dent de Burgin above Méribel in the French Alps.
While crossing an unsecured off-piste area between Piste Chamois and Piste Mauduit, he fell and hit his head on a rock, sustaining a serious head injury despite wearing a ski helmet. According to his physicians, he would most likely have died if he had not been wearing a helmet. He was airlifted to Grenoble Hospital where he underwent two surgical interventions. Schumacher was put into a medically induced coma because of traumatic brain injury; his doctors reported on 7 March 2014 that his condition was stable.
On 4 April 2014, Schumacher’s agent reported that he was showing “moments of consciousness” as he was gradually withdrawn from the medically induced coma, adding to reports by relatives of “small encouraging signs” over the preceding month.
In mid-June 2014, he was moved from intensive care into a rehabilitation ward. By 16 June 2014, Schumacher had regained consciousness and left Grenoble Hospital for further rehabilitation at the University Hospital (CHUV) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
On 9 September 2014, Schumacher left CHUV and was brought back to his home for further rehabilitation.
In November 2014, it was reported that Schumacher was “paralysed and in a wheelchair”; he “cannot speak and has memory problems”.In a video interview released in May 2015, Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm said that his condition is slowly improving “considering the severeness of the injury he had”.
In September 2016, Felix Damm, lawyer for Schumacher, told a German court that his client “cannot walk”, in response to false reports from December 2015 in German publication Die Bunte that he could “walk a couple of steps”.
In December 2016 Schumacher’s manager stated that “Michael’s health is not a public issue, and so we will continue to make no comment in that regard”.
In December 2018, it was reported that Schumacher “is not bed-ridden nor is he existing on tubes. Schumacher continues the rehabilitation process in the privacy of his home in Switzerland
