Formula One champion Schumacher out of coma

BERLIN – Nearly six months after sustaining serious head injuries in a skiing accident, seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher left a French hospital on Monday and was transferred to neighboring Switzerland to continue his recovery.

Schumacher “is not in a coma anymore,” his manager, Sabine Kehm, said in a brief statement announcing that the German driver had left the Grenoble University Hospital, where he had been treated since his accident Dec. 29.

He was transferred to the Lausanne University Hospital, near Schumacher’s Swiss home. Hospital spokesman Darcy Christen confirmed Schumacher was admitted but stressed that the facility wants “to ensure that he and his family fully enjoy privacy and medical confidentiality.”