Schumacher returns home to continue recovery

The Formula One star was wearing a helmet when his skiing accident occurred Keystone

Former Formula One star Michael Schumacher has left the University Hospital of Lausanne to continue his recovery at his home overlooking Lake Geneva, more than eight months after sustaining critical injuries in a skiing accident in the French Alps. 

His manager, Sabine Kehm, said on Tuesday that the seven-time champion had made “progress” over recent weeks and months but he still had “a long and difficult road ahead”. 

Kehm emphasised that the move did not necessarily indicate a dramatic change in Schumacher’s condition.

The German, who won a record 91 Grand Prix victories and left motor racing last year after a disappointing three-year comeback, hit his head on rocks on December 29 and lay in a coma until June. 

He was initially treated in a hospital in Grenoble, France, before being moved to Lausanne in June for rehabilitation.

The same month, details of his injuries which were described in a dozen-page letter from Schumacher’s doctor in Grenoble, were put up for sale. Journalists were offered the information online for CHF60,000 ($66,000). At the start of July the French authorities said that via an IP address they had traced the leak to a Zurich helicopter firm.

According to reports in the British mediaExternal link at the end of July, while Schumacher remains paralysed he is able to answer questions using his eyelashes. 

In March, the Daily Mail reported that his wife had spent some CHF15 million of Schumacher’s estimated CHF750 million fortune transforming parts of their Swiss mansionExternal link in Gland into a medical centre.