Retired Formula One Champion Michael Schumacher Out of Coma

Nearly six months after suffering a severe head injury and being placed in a coma, retired Formula One racing champion Michael Schumacher has regained consciousness.

Michael Schumacher in Critical Condition After Ski Accident

Earlier today, Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm made a statement saying, “Michael has left [the hospital in Grenoble] to continue his long phase of rehabilitation.”

The seven-time world champion is now recuperating at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland. Schumacher’s family “would like to explicitly thank all his treating doctors, nurses and therapists in Grenoble as well as the first aiders at the place of the accident, who did an excellent job in those first months,” Kehm’s statement continued. ”The family also wishes to thank all the people who have sent Michael all the many good wishes. We are sure it helped him. For the future we ask for understanding that his further rehabilitation will take place away from the public eye.”

In December, the 45-year-old hit his head on a rock while backcountry skiing in the French Alps. After being rushed to a nearby hospital, a brain scan showed internal bleeding and injuries including contusions and lesions. Schumacher was transferred to a hospital in Grenoble, France where he was placed in an artificial coma to resist swelling and underwent surgery to treat internal bleeding.

Schumacher’s release from the hospital in Grenoble on Monday is the first news of recovery since April when Kehm reported that he was “[showing] moments of consciousness and awakening.”

“If he’s been released from the hospital he was in, it means he’s able to support his own breathing and bodily functions,” Dr. Tipu Aziz, a professor of neurosurgery at Oxford University’s John Radcliffe Hospital told the New York Post. According to Aziz, that Schumacher is going to a rehab facility suggests that there are some “long-term side effects” from his skiing accident.

“With rehabilitation, they’ll try to train him to cope with the disabilities that he’s got to achieve as much life function as possible,” Aziz said. “If he’s had a brain injury, he may have weakness in his limbs secondary to loss of brain function. He may have problems with speech and swallowing.”