6/13/2013: Michael Schumacher Being Moved from Intensive Care to Rehab Unit
While former race champion Michael Schumacher lies in a coma, his former team boss Flavio Briatore expressed concern with the recent silence over at the Schumacher family.
"I'm quite afraid, and virtually certain, we will never have any good news about Michael," Briatore said in a recent interview with Italian Radio 24. "There is no news because the family is very closed."
Briatore's sentiment was mirrored by an earlier statement from former F1 doctor Gary Harstein, who blogged last week about Schumacher's condition.
"I'm still considering that if there were good news to be had, we'd have been told," Harstein wrote on his blog. "I can conceive of no possible reason that Michael's entourage...would not tell his fans if significantly good things have happened."
Schumacher was artificially placed into a coma last December, after suffering severe head injury in a skiing accident in the French Alps. Though he was wearing a helmet at the time, Schumacher sustained a skull fracture.
The decision to place the seven-time world champion in a coma was made by neurosurgeons to reduce the possibility of a potentially fatal brain hemorrhage during treatment. By January, Schumacher's doctors were of the opinion that the Formula One racing legend would remain in a permanent vegetative state.
Based on reports from the medical profession, the chances a coma patient regains consciousness significantly reduces over time. Officially, Schumacher's condition has been listed as stable, but critical.
Days ago, German television RTL released a special segment about current efforts to save Schumacher. German tennis star Boris Becker was amongst those interviewed for the program.
"We cannot imagine what [Schumacher's wife] Corinna and the children have been going through since the accident," Becker had said.
"They have built a protective wall around him. It's been very quiet but this is the only way to cure him."
