F1: Gerhard Berger Injured In Skiing Fall, Schumacher Off Respirator

Former F1 driver Gerhard Berger has crashed while skiing in the Kitzbuhel district in his native Austria.

Austrian reports including the Kronen Zeitung newspaper said former Ferrari and McLaren driver Berger was hospitalised late last week after crashing at the Skiwelt Wilder Kaiser Brixental resort.

Berger's accident follows Michael Schumacher's skiing fall by just ten weeks.

APA news agency said the 54-year-old Berger was released from the St Johann hospital on Sunday, where he had been airlifted from the scene with a broken upper arm and operated on.

"He's very good. He is on the road to recovery," a hospital spokesperson said.

Reports said Berger tripped on a forest road and struck a concrete drainage pipe.

(GMM)

Michael Schumacher is breathing without the help of a respirator, the authoritative Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport claimed on Friday.

It is a significant possible development in the seven-time world champion's situation, more than nine weeks into his coma following a skiing fall in late December.

The F1 legend's manager Sabine Kehm issued an official statement on Friday, warning that any unofficial information about Schumacher's condition is "not valid".

"Michael is still in the wake up phase," the official statement added. "The situation has not changed."

But the Gazzetta article was penned by the highly respected correspondent Pino Allievi, and at the Geneva motor show, Kehm indicated that Schumacher's overall situation has improved.

"Michael is out of danger," she reportedly said, "but the condition is still serious and so it is difficult to say all the risks are gone.

"But it is clear that his condition is no longer as sensitive as at first."

Allievi, meanwhile, wrote that while Schumacher's children have now returned to school, Schumacher's close friends such as Jean Todt and Ross Brawn are alternating at his bedside and speaking to the great German in English, as they did during their ultra-successful Ferrari days.

The report said that during these visits, at which recordings of pit radio conversations and F1 engine sounds are played in order to stimulate his memories, the expression on Schumacher's face sometimes changes.

And when the doctors are in the room, Schumacher reportedly often grimaces, or his arms move.

(GMM)