Ten years ago, Michael Schumacher had an accident while skiing. The family draws a red line: the health of the Formula 1 icon is not a public issue. Not everyone sees it that way.
The University Hospital of Grenoble is under siege. It’s hectic, it’s confusing. Journalists, photographers, fans, onlookers. The reason for the crowd and media crowd has a name: Michael Schumacher.
It is December 29, 2013, and somewhere behind the walls and windows of the concrete building, Schumacher is being treated. Emergency surgery was carried out immediately after arrival by rescue helicopter; he spent a long time in the intensive care unit. How is the record world champion doing, people ask. At that time like today.
Schumacher’s health is a private matter
“The decision to protect privacy from the public was made in Michael’s interest. It is the family’s right to deal with it in the way that is best for them,” explains Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm again and again. Schumacher’s health is not a public issue.
It’s such a thing with insight; it doesn’t open up to everyone. A journalist disguised as a priest tries to gain access to Schumacher in the intensive care unit, while another person poses as his father. Kehm remembers that there were “very many absurd cases” of people who wanted to get to him. To see him or even to take a photo or video.
A fight against paparazzi attacks
It’s no longer a longing for the star. “The fight for reach due to the increasing attention of the Internet and social networks is certainly a factor that led to such excesses back then,” explains Thomas Horky, Professor of Journalism and Sports Communication at Macromedia University.
It’s a struggle to confront sensationalism. It speaks for the whole family as well as for Kehm, “how they have handled this long and difficult time with countless paparazzi attacks and countless media inquiries so confidently and effectively for ten years to date,” says Norbert Haug, the Mercedes -was head of motorsport when Schumacher returned to Formula 1 for the Silver Arrows in 2010.
The problem with water level reports
For Schumacher, private means private – this has been true throughout his breathtaking career in motorsport. His family always follows this red line, even after the fall in which the now 54-year-old suffered a severe traumatic brain injury.
“It was always about protecting private matters. Of course, we discussed a lot about how that was possible,” explained the Schumacher family’s media lawyer, Felix Damm, to the legal magazine “Legal Tribune Online” in October. “So we also considered whether a final report about Michael’s state of health could be the right way to do this. But that wouldn’t have been the end and there would have had to be constantly updated ‘water level reports’.” As those affected, it is not up to you to “put a stop to the media.”
Tragic and mystical
How is Schumacher? What does he look like? Questions that many people ask themselves because this former exceptional athlete from Kerpen, who ended his career at the end of 2012, still fascinates them today. “That’s because at the height of his reputation he was suddenly taken out of the race, if you want to call it that. But not through an accident on the asphalt, which can be the case with a Formula 1 driver,” explains Sports sociologist Gunter Gebauer.
“Ayrton Senna died in a racing accident at the peak of his art, which immediately inspired mythologization. With Schumacher, things are completely different. He is still alive, but his tragedy did not take place on the racetrack, but on the ski slopes .”
It’s about the tragic, but also almost mystical. “Nobody actually knows exactly what happened. There are no pictures and no very specific sequence of the accident, which took place on a ski slope and not a Formula 1 track,” notes sports scientist Horky. “Therefore there is still something mysterious surrounding this accident, which was a kind of attraction for the media at the time.”
Schumacher “in the pose of the strong racing driver”
Michael Schumacher used to protect the privacy of his wife Corinna, son Mick and daughter Gina. Today his family protects him. He believes, says media lawyer Damm, “that the vast majority of fans can deal with it well and also respect the fact that the accident has set in motion a process in which private shelter is necessary and will now continue to be observed.”
After all, there are plenty of pictures of Michael Schumacher that are also intended for the public. They just come from a different time. “There are cases of former top athletes who go back into public after serious accidents, and you are faced with extreme human vulnerability. But there are no pictures of Schumacher since the accident, nothing is specified that I could possibly imagine “, explains sports sociologist Gebauer. “Instead, I still have the image of Schumacher in front of me in the pose of the young and strong racing driver as one of the greatest German athletes of all time.”