10 years since Michael Schumacher’s accident: everything known and what his serious fall was

Today marks 10 years since an episode that hit everyone. On Sunday, December 29, 2013, at 11:00 am, Michael Schumacher, considered one of the best drivers and athletes in history, an icon for millions of people, a true mass phenomenon, was accident while skiing at Méribel station, in the French Alps.

What was Michael Schumacher’s accident?

He hit his head hard on a rock while skiing off-piste on a snowy day where he had to have fun with his son Mick Schumacher. According to Olivier Fourcade, a ski instructor at the shower station, Shumacher was surprised by a rock that knocked him off balance and caused him to fall. However, the same instructor confirmed that the key could be in the camera that the pilot had placed on his helmet, which could have aggravated his injuries by hooking his skis and then puncturing his helmet.

Bad luck struck a pilot who put his life at risk several times driving more than 300 km/h, also competing on motorcycles. A super man in everyone’s eyes. A year after retiring from F1 after experiencing his second stint in the ‘Great Circus’ with Mercedes, when he only had to worry about pleasing his family, he seemed safe from any accidents. Also, one day when his wife Corinna admits that Michael told her he didn’t want to go skiing. “The snow isn’t perfect. “We can go to Dubai to skydive,” he told her in a sentence that Corinna revealed in the only documentary the family authorized, on Netflix. “It was bad luck,” Corinna admitted. Schumacher.

Schumacher’s two initial surgeries and the medical report

The Grenoble Hospital Center reported in a first medical report that Michael suffered “severe head trauma with coma on arrival, which immediately required neurosurgical intervention.” Radio Monte Carlo alerted the world, confirming that the German had suffered a brain hemorrhage and that his life was in danger. Two days later, when a second intervention was required in which the hematoma, located on the left side of the brain, was drained and a device was installed to reduce intracranial pressure, the hospital spoke of “slight improvement.”

Of course, despite the good results of the operation, doctors warned that Schumacher’s skull had many hematomas everywhere, “some in the brain itself and not only around it and some more accessible than others.” And they stressed that the injuries were “varied and diffuse” and that “there is still a lot of bleeding in the brain.”

The uncertainty was maximum and it was not until six months later, on June 26, 2014, that it was announced that Michael had managed to come out of the coma and left the CHU in Grenoble to be transferred to the Lausanne Hospital, in Switzerland. Since then, what little has been known is that on September 9 he was transferred to his home in Geneva. There, silence began about a major figure worldwide, a driver who marked an era in F1, capable of winning 7 titles in the highest category of world motorsport, 5 of them in a row (from 2000 to 2004) who wears red. Ferrari, a sporting hero known to everyone, even those who have never seen an F1 race. A star with up to 91 wins, 68 pole positions, 155 podiums, 22 hat-tricks and 5,1111 laps led the way, leaving records seemingly unattainable. Some of them were beaten by men like Lewis, who surpassed him in 2020 with 7 crowns, or the current king Max Verstappen. And others continue to be a reference for everyone.

Everything that has been known about Michael in these 10 years

In these 10 years, there are few people who have not asked themselves the following question: “How is Michael Schumacher?” And after a decade, it is still impossible to give a clear answer. Several people visited Michael at a medical home where the ‘Daily Mail’ stated in 2018 that the family was spending around 55,000 euros a week on care. doctors and physiotherapy. In total, between 15 and 20 people work day and night for Michael under a strict confidentiality contract. Corinna even decided that her former manager, Willi Weber, would not see Michael anymore because he did not show up at the hospital quickly.

One of the people Michael had the most contact with was his former boss at Ferrari, Jean Todt. The former FIA president was one of the few people to comment on Michael. “I saw the Brazilian Grand Prix in Switzerland with Michael Schumacher. He doesn’t give up and keeps fighting,” said Todt in 2018. And there was a lot of speculation. “Michael is in good hands and we are doing everything we can to help him. “We are following Michael’s will to keep a subject as sensitive as ever, private,” said his wife Corinna, on the occasion of Michael’s 50th birthday on January 3, 2019. But speculation could not be avoided.

In 2019, according to Le Parisien, Schumacher was transferred to Paris to receive regenerative treatment with stem cells to obtain an anti-inflammatory effect throughout the body and to consult a doctor specializing in heart failure. There was never a confirmation. Everyone wants to know how Michael is doing and there are controversial events. In 2024, the theft of medical records is reported and Corinna announces legal action calling for “criminal charges” against the media that published them. The family also slammed ‘Bunte’ magazine in 2025 for giving “false hope” with “irresponsible” speculation that Michael had started walking alone. “Not true,” they said.

For his part, in 2021, neurologist Erich Riederer was clear about what he believed happened to Schumacher: “I think he was in a vegetative state, which means he was awake but not responding. He was breathing, his heart was throbbing, maybe he can sit up and take small steps with help, but not anymore. I think that’s the best for him. Is there any chance of seeing him like he did before the accident? Really? Not likely”.

Corinna and Mick’s words and how much they were hiding

But the most important words to understand what Michael Schumacher is really going through are the ones his family dedicated to him in 2021 in the documentary published by Netflix about Schumacher’s life.

“Since the accident, the experiences, the typical moments in a family, are gone. Not at all like before. And in my opinion this is very unfair. I think my father and I have a different understanding now. I think we will speak almost the same language, of motorsports, and we will have a lot to talk about. And that’s what I can’t stop thinking about. I was thinking how cool that would be, I hope. I would give anything to have that…” comments his son Mick, suggesting he can’t talk to his father.

“Of course I miss Michael every day, but I’m not the only one who misses him: his children, family, father, everyone close to him. Everyone misses Michael, but Michael is here. In a different way, but he’s here and that’s what makes us stronger,” his wife said in the documentary, confirming that Michael is not what he used to be, that the accident left him with important consequences that they did not want. to reveal, even if it can be intuited. .