FORMULA One legend Michael Schumacher is in a critical condition in a French hospital with a brain haemorrhage after a skiing accident.

The 44-year-old German was "suffering a serious brain trauma with coma on his arrival, which required an immediate neurosurgical operation," the hospital in the southeast French city of Grenoble said in a statement.

"He remains in a critical condition.''

Schumacher had been skiing off-piste in the upmarket Meribel resort, where he reportedly has a property, when he fell and hit his head on a rock, mountain police who gave him first aid said.

Schumacher's manager Sabine Kehm confirmed that Schumacher was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.

He was airlifted to a local hospital, then to the Grenoble facility. A specialist neurosurgeon from Paris was rushed in to oversee his treatment.

The director of the Meribel resort, Christophe Gernigon-Lecomte, had said just after the accident that Schumacher had been wearing a helmet and was "conscious but a little agitated'' just after the accident, with early reports suggesting there was no cause for alarm.

But when Schumacher then fell into coma, doctors realised the damage was worse than initially feared.

The two mountain police officers who gave first aid said Schumacher was suffering "severe cranial trauma'' when they got to him and a helicopter was brought in to evacuate him within 10 minutes.

A renowned Paris surgeon, Dr Gerard Saillant - who also operated on Schumacher when he broke his calf and shinbone during his most serious racing crash at the 1999 British Grand Prix - was brought to the Grenoble hospital in a police car to take charge of the famous patient.

Schumacher was on a private stay in Meribel, according to his spokeswoman, with his 45th birthday happening next Friday.

Dr Gary Hartstein, former Medical Delegate for the Formula One World Championship, took to Twitter to attempt to explain the medical situation Schumacher finds himself in.

"It's quite well known that extradural hematomas, a kind of cerebral hemorrhage, can leave a lucid interval after injury," he wrote, referring to reports that Schumacher was conscious when he was attended to after the accident.

"Then as the hematoma forms, the sudden increase in pressure causes sudden and dramatic symptoms. Pressure must be relieved rapidly.

"This is done with a neurosurgical intervention. Then the victim is observed in an ICU environment.

"Quality of recovery depends on: 1) severity of initial injury, 2) acuteness and amplitude of pressure rise when hematoma forms, 3) rapidity with which it is drained, 4) quality of neuro intensive care and rehab."

Schumacher retired from Formula One for a second time at the end of the 2012 season. He won two world titles with Benetton and five in a row with Ferrari.

Schumacher has had accidents before, including a motorcycle crash in February 2009 in Cartagena, Spain, where he damaged a vertebra, a rib and the bottom of his skull.

At the time, his doctor, Johannes Peil, said it had caused the racer the most serious long-term harm of his career.

That accident denied him taking the place of Felipe Massa at Ferrari after the Brazilian suffered severe head injuries in a crash at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009.

Schumacher was seriously hurt in a motorcycling accident in February 2009 in Spain when he suffered neck and spine injuries.

He recovered from those injuries to make an ill-fated return in 2010 at Mercedes where he spent three seasons and was largely outshone by teammate Nico Rosberg.



Meribel is part of an extensive ski region with about 180 lifts connecting three alpine valleys.