Michael Schumacher: 'only a miracle' can save him

By +Frank B.
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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Michael Schumacher: 'only a miracle' can save him

Michael Schumacher needs "a miracle" to survive, doctors reportedly tell his family

 

Doctors treating Michael Schumacher and other medical experts have told his family that "only a miracle" can save him, sources have claimed.

 

The seven-time Formula One world champion suffered serious brain injuries after hitting a rock during a skiing accident in the French Alpine ski resort of Meribel in late December.

 

He is being treated in hospital in Grenoble where he has been in an artificially induced coma for a total of 69 days.

 

Sources close to his family say the 45-year-old driver's wife Corinna and his brother, Ralf Schumacher, have been consulting brain specialists throughout Europe and have been told that his chances of recovery are minimal.

 

The family is said to be concerned that the French doctors treating Schumacher have little hope that he will recover and now assume that he will remain in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.

 

Experts point out that most artificial comas last for an average of three weeks. Schumacher's management team has insisted that doctors are gradually reducing drug levels to bring the driver out of his artificial coma and that he is currently in a "wake up" phase.

 

In a statement released on Friday, Schumacher's management team insisted there had been no change. "Michael is still in a wake up phase, the situation has not altered," said the driver's management team spokeswoman Sabine Kehm.

 

At the management team's request, the Grenoble hospital treating Schumacher has kept news about his condition to a minimum. However sources close to his family say that the driver's prognosis is bleak. "The family has been told that only a miracle can bring him back now," a senior German journalist reporting on the Schumacher case said. " He is in a bad way but until the family issues a formal statement, we cannot publish anything," he added.

 

Another source added: "Doctors have given it to them straight. Miracles sometimes happen but there is little hope that he will come out of this."

 

A fortnight ago, Germany's Focus magazine reported that complications had obliged doctors to halt Schumacher's wake up process and that the driver had been put back into a coma. However Schumacher's management team denied the report.

 

Coma experts have stressed that the past week should have been crucial for Schumacher's wake up process as doctors would have been hoping for a sign that he was gradually becoming aware of his surroundings.

 

However last Sunday, the Schumacher family is reported to have spent Corinna Schumacher's 45th birthday gathered around the comatose driver's hospital bed praying in vain for him to acknowledge their presence.

 

Doctors say that the greatest risk facing the driver while he remains in a coma and unable to swallow properly, is the possibility that he will contract pneumonia as a result of his lungs being filled with fluid.

 

Should Schumacher manage to emerge from his coma, there appears to be little likelihood that he would be able to live a normal, active life.

 

Gary Hartstein, a former Formula One doctor told the German media last week: "The majority of patients who come out of a coma alive after this amount of time suffer severe disabilities."

 

Source: The Telegraph

Grand Master

firey

Posted
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Hopefully he pulls through.  However it will not be a "Miracle from God" or any other Diety for that matter.  If he survives, it is due to the hard work of the doctors, the medication, and the bodies innate ability to heal itself.

I don't get that "praying in vain for him to acknowledge their presence", I'm sorry but praying won't do dick all. If he were to acknowledge their presence it would be because his body has healed itself enough that he would be able to.  

Sorry for the off-topic, and I really do hope he pulls through, but it just makes me shake my head when I read stuff like that.

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Grand Master

simonlang

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lets pray for him. he always was in the center of my happenings when i experienced something new/unexpected in my life the last years. even more weird because i used to be anti-schumacher in his early years.

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riahc3

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Hello,

lets pray for him.

Praying for him will do absolutely nothing, just like firey said.

I think its time to start thinking if he would rather die or live a life severally limited. I know which I would choose.

Grand Master

Dick Montage

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Posted

Whole article says "a journalist says" or "a source close to the family reveals". No named sources, so could be entirely fabricated. There will be a very small handful of people who know what's really going on. I never liked him as a driver, but I hope he either makes a full recovery (unlikely) or passes peacefully.

 

I would be VERY surprised if a doctor used those words.

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PsYcHoKiLLa

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As a "medical" rule of thumb: the longer the coma, the lesser change to pull through. If after one month, still one is in coma, almost always ZERO 0% chance to recover :(

 

Dunno bout that, I've seen plenty of "man wakes after 20 years coma" stories over the years. Granted when they do wake up after that long they're not exactly in 100% fitness:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-187920/Coma-man-wakes-19-years.html

 

Plenty of other results:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=man+wakes+after+20+years+coma&oq=man+wakes+after+20+years+coma&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8

 

Hopefully they've tested for this:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/rom-houben-man-in-coma-fo_n_367798.html

  • 2 weeks later...
Grand Master

DocM

Posted
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http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1729557

Formula One?s Michael Schumacher loses 25% of his body weight after 83 days in coma

Muscle atrophy is reportedly taking a significant toll on Formula One racer Michael Schumacher, who?s in his 83rd day of an artificial coma after suffering a horrific skiing accident this winter.

The once fit and hearty champion has lost 25% of his body weight while doctors have tried unsuccessfully to bring him out his medically induced coma for several weeks now,according to Mirror.com.

Schumacher is reportedly down to about 120 pounds, the paper said, leading a German doctor to speculate that he?d suffered serious muscle loss.

?One must assume that his muscles have degraded greatly due to the immobility,? Dr. Curt Diehm, a German physician, told the website.

Schumacher, 45, had an accident Dec. 29 while skiing at Meribel, a resort in the French alps.

He suffered extensive brain injuries, but doctors have withheld any definitive word on his condition.

His medical team at the University of Grenoble has slowly been reducing the drugs that had kept him unconscious immediately after the accident.

But Schumacher has yet to regain his faculties even as doctors phase out his medications.

The seven-time champion?s wife and two children have kept daily bedside vigils with him at the hospital.

  • 2 weeks later...
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AsherGZ

Posted
Posted

First of all, so sorry to hear that. I'll pray for his recovery but if God has other plans for him then He knows better for we are in fact mere mortals with only so much we can do and all sufferings, cure, death and life are in God's hand alone.

 

Secondly, wow, way to be an insensitive jerk. First comment in the thread is not about sympathizing with the situation but some guy getting ###### all over himself because Schumacher's family believes in God and he doesn't. Hate how all the internet atheists gang up and ridicule peoples beliefs just because they can't imagine someone else might not think the way they do!

Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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First of all, so sorry to hear that. I'll pray for his recovery but if God has other plans for him then He knows better for we are in fact mere mortals with only so much we can do and all sufferings, cure, death and life are in God's hand alone.

Secondly, wow, way to be an insensitive jerk. First comment in the thread is not about sympathizing with the situation but some guy getting ###### all over himself because Schumacher's family believes in God and he doesn't. Hate how all the internet atheists gang up and ridicule peoples beliefs just because they can't imagine someone else might not think the way they do!

I have to agree with what firey wrote. If Schumacher survives (let alone recovers) it's thanks to science and medical technology. Not because of a divine intervention.

Some of you theists ought to get rid of the persecution complex you suffer from.

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Walrush

Posted
Posted

First of all, so sorry to hear that. I'll pray for his recovery but if God has other plans for him then He knows better for we are in fact mere mortals with only so much we can do and all sufferings, cure, death and life are in God's hand alone.

 

Secondly, wow, way to be an insensitive jerk. First comment in the thread is not about sympathizing with the situation but some guy getting ###### all over himself because Schumacher's family believes in God and he doesn't. Hate how all the internet atheists gang up and ridicule peoples beliefs just because they can't imagine someone else might not think the way they do!

 

Well that's okay. I'm sure someone will come knocking on their Doors soon trying to convince them to think and believe in the things they do. 

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AsherGZ

Posted
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I have to agree with what firey wrote. If Schumacher survives (let alone recovers) it's thanks to science and medical technology. Not because of a divine intervention.

Some of you theists ought to get rid of the persecution complex you suffer from.

It's just one of those things on which believers and non believers would never agree. And I don't want to be the one to derail this thread and take the discussion somewhere else, but just as you have made your thoughts on the topic clear, I think I have the right to express my beliefs as well.

 

While I don't disregard the wonders of medicine, I believe scientific progress is limited by the human mind. Even science agrees that humans utilize just a small percentage of their brain. Science has answered a lot of questions for us, but compared to all the knowledge in the universe, it's just a tiny fraction. The things kept hidden from us, our mind can't even phantom. Even today, the smallest of things in nature boggles the human mind - the human body being one of them. On one hand, its tough as rocks, but other times, we're so fragile, you can drop dead this very second with no medical explanation to back up your cause of death. And no science in the world can bring you back.

 

Don't we have some of the best doctors in the world working on Schumacher's case? Yet, they stand aside helplessly, wishing for a miracle. And miracles do happen. People declared clinically dead have woken up and lived for years afterwards. Thousands of miracles happen everyday around us, we just have to keep our eyes, ears and minds open to them. Atheists are so adamant on not acknowledging anything, they keep repeating a lie until they convince themselves it's the truth. Like Dr. Seuss said: ?You?ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.? ;)

Grand Master

theyarecomingforyou

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While I don't disregard the wonders of medicine, I believe scientific progress is limited by the human mind. Even science agrees that humans utilize just a small percentage of their brain.

Not true.

 

It won't be a miracle that saves Schumacher, it will be his medical care and chance. The stories we hear about people waking up after long periods in a coma are the outliers, the statistical anomalies; it isn't newsworthy to talk about all the people who don't recover from comas. Schumacher will have some of the best medical treatment that money can buy and that will certainly improve his odds but his situation is dire. Even if he regains consciousness he is unlikely to ever fully recover. To credit miracles or prayer for any potential recovery is offensive to any rational person.

Grand Master

Lamp0

Posted
Posted
Don't we have some of the best doctors in the world working on Schumacher's case? Yet, they stand aside helplessly, wishing for a miracle. And miracles do happen. People declared clinically dead have woken up and lived for years afterwards. Thousands of miracles happen everyday around us, we just have to keep our eyes, ears and minds open to them. Atheists are so adamant on not acknowledging anything, they keep repeating a lie until they convince themselves it's the truth. Like Dr. Seuss said: ?You?ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.? ;)

 

ugh...

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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Schumacher has 'conscious moments' - agent

 

F1 champion Michael Schumacher is showing "moments of consciousness" after months in a coma, his agent has said.

 

Sabine Kehm said in a statement to the media that he was "making progress", adding that they remain "confident".

 

Doctors in France have been working to bring the seven-time champion out of a medically induced coma.

 

The 45-year-old German suffered a severe head injury in a skiing accident in the French Alps on 29 December.

 

"We are on his side during his long and difficult fight, together with the team of the hospital in Grenoble," Ms Kehm said in the statement.

 

"We would like to thank you all for the continuous sympathies. At the same time we again ask for understanding that we do not intend to disclose details."

 

Last month Schumacher's relatives said in a statement that he had been showing "small, encouraging signs".

 

Investigators probing the accident said Schumacher had been going at the speed of "a very good skier" at the time of his crash in the resort of Meribel.

 

He had been skiing off-piste when he fell and hit a rock, investigators said.

 

Experts reconstructed events leading up to the crash after examining Schumacher's skiing equipment and viewing footage filmed on a camera attached to his helmet.

 

Schumacher retired from racing in 2012 after a 19-year career.

 

He won two titles with Benetton, in 1994 and 1995, before switching to Ferrari in 1996 and going on to win five straight titles from 2000.

 

Source: BBC News

 

The positive signs are not because of any miracle either, whatever some of you may believe.

Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran

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If he wakes up by now, he will probably not be the same person as when he fell into a coma.

 

It seems with brain injuries, to be a total lottery. I guess all we can do is wait and see. Nice to hear some encouraging signs after so long though. 

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