Michael Schumacher seen in public for first time at daughter Gina ...
NZ Herald
2 Oct, 2024 06:40 PM2 mins to read
Michael Schumacher has reportedly been seen in public for the first time in many years as he attended his daughter’s wedding.
The 55-year-old former Formula 1 champion requires around-the-clock medical care following a skiing accident over a decade ago and is said to have watched his daughter, Gina-Maria, 27, marry Iain Bethke.
It took place at the family’s villa in Majorca and guests were told to leave their mobile phones at the door to ensure Schumacher’s privacy.
The appearance suggests a possible change in the family’s attitude towards sharing updates on Schumacher’s condition. His wife Corinna has been particularly fierce in protecting the family’s privacy.
Only a select few trusted friends and relatives have been allowed to visit him since the accident.
In 2020 Italian media reported that French cardiologist Philippe Menasche was set to perform a new stem cell operation on Schumacher to “regenerate his nervous system”. According to further reports, the Covid-19 pandemic put an end to those plans.
Schumacher has been treated at home in a mansion in Switzerland since September 2014, and former Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa revealed he remains in a “difficult phase”.
Last year, F1 journalist Roger Benoit, a friend of Schumacher, claimed Schumacher’s case is one “without hope” in a devastating update.
During an interview with Swiss newspaper Blick, he refused to elaborate on the specifics of Schumacher’s condition, referring to a rare 2022 interview in which Schumacher’s son Mick said: “I would give anything to talk to Dad.”
“This sentence says everything about how his father has been doing for over 3500 days,” Benoit said. “A case without hope.”
Schumacher drove in Formula 1 for Haas in 2021 and 2022, and that year said: “I think Dad and me, we would understand each other in a different way now.
“We would have had much more to talk about, and that is where my head is most of the time, thinking that would be so cool. I would give up everything just for that.”
