Michael Schumacher, the former Formula One champion, has left the hospital in Grenoble, France, where he was admitted with brain injuries nearly six months ago, to "continue his long phase of rehabilitation." He is "no longer in a coma," his family announced in a statement Monday.
The statement said the 45-year-old Schumacher's "further rehabilitation will take place away from the public eye," and gave no details of where that would be. The Associated Press later reported that Schumacher had been transferred to Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, closer to the family's estate in Gland.
The family also did not provide details about Schumacher's medical condition, in keeping with the terse nature of almost all of its communiqués since Schumacher's skiing accident Dec. 29, when he fell and struck his head on a rock on an un groomed snowfield at Meribel, a French Alpine resort.
In a bid to discourage members of the news media from attempting to track Schumacher's whereabouts, the statement asked them to continue the respect for his privacy first requested in January, when reporters and camera crews complied with the family's request that they end their vigil outside the Grenoble hospital.
Schumacher's wife, Corinna, was said to have settled on the move from Grenoble after months of shuttling by car and helicopter between the Gland estate, which has a helicopter pad, and the Grenoble hospital, a distance of more than 100 miles by road. Lausanne is about 20 miles northeast of Gland. The Schumachers have two children, Gina-Marie, 16, and Mick, 14.
Sabine Kehm, Schumacher's longtime manager, said the family wanted to thank the thousands who had sent messages of support for the injured driver.
"We are sure it helped him," she said.
On behalf of the family, she also praised the "excellent job" of the medical team in Grenoble, where Schumacher spent months in the neuropathological intensive care unit.
A report published Monday on the website of the German tabloid Bild, the country's most widely circulated newspaper, said that Schumacher was now able to hear voices and respond to touches.
"He can communicate with his wife, Corinna, and his children," the newspaper said.
The family statements have previously said that Schumacher was experiencing "conscious moments" as the Grenoble medical team reduced the sedatives that had put him into a medically induced coma after he arrived at the hospital from the Meribel accident, and that there were other, unspecified "encouraging signs" that his condition was improving.
But weeks have gone by between the family bulletins, most of them carefully composed to disclose almost nothing about his condition beyond the bleak diagnosis offered by his doctors in the early days after the accident. They said then that they had conducted two operations on Schumacher's brain to relieve blood clots, but that scans had shown numerous other clots deep within his brain that were inoperable.
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