Small improvement for Schumacher after 2nd surgery

GRENOBLE, France (AP) — Michael Schumacher underwent a second surgery after a brain scan showed small, “surprising” signs of improvement, but grim doctors said Tuesday they could offer no insight into the prognosis for the Formula 1 champion.

Schumacher, who turns 45 on Friday, suffered critical head injuries when he fell and struck a rock Sunday while skiing on a family vacation in the French Alps. His manager confirmed that the accident cracked his helmet, which doctors credited for giving him a chance at survival.Schumacher’s condition stabilised somewhat after the second surgery, but he remains in a medically induced coma – and doctors gave no prediction on how long that would last.“We cannot tell you any more about the future,” said Gerard Saillant, a surgeon and friend of the family who is in Grenoble. Saillant said it would be “stupid” to make any predictions about Schumacher’s recovery.Schumacher and his 14-year-old son were skiing in the French Alpine resort of Meribel, where the family has a chalet, when he fell and hit the right side of his head on a rock. He was taken first to a local hospital, then to Grenoble University Hospital, which is recognized as having one of France’s best neurology teams.Dr Emmanuel Gay, the hospital’s chief neurosurgeon, said a brain scan performed late Monday showed bruising “a little bit everywhere” in Schumacher’s brain – but also an unexpected easing of pressure.“The brain scan was, I must say, surprising,” he said.But he and other doctors cautioned that Schumacher’s condition was still grave after the successful two-hour surgery to eliminate the largest and most accessible bruise, on the left side of his brain.“We cannot say he is out of danger,” said Dr Jean-Francois Payen, head of the hospital’s intensive care unit. Payen said any neurological evaluation was “out of the question” for now.Payen told BFM-TV on Monday that medical literature puts the recovery rate at 40 to 45 percent of patients. “I don’t work with statistics. I work with patients,” he was quoted as saying.Schumacher was being kept artificially sedated and his body temperature was lowered to between 34 and 35 degrees Celsius (93.2 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit), to reduce swelling in the brain, reduce its energy consumption and allow it to rest.Schumacher earned universal acclaim for his uncommon and sometimes ruthless driving talent, which led to a record 91 race wins. He retired from Formula 1 last year after garnering an unmatched seven world titles.Schumi, as his fans affectionately call him, was famously aggressive on the track and no less intense off-hours. In retirement, he remained an avid skier, skydiver and horseback rider.Schumacher’s manager, Sabine Kehm, offered more details on the accident, confirming that his helmet cracked on impact.“It looks like probably that initiating a corner, he was hitting a stone which he had not seen and was catapulted down on a rock,” Kehm said in English. “That is extremely and very unfortunate … really very, very bad luck. Michael was not at high speed.”Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jamaicaobserverFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/JamaicaObserver

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Small improvement for Schumacher after 2nd surgery

BLAKE OUT! - To seek surgery for ‘sensitive’ injury — official

TOP Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake will not defend his 100 metres title at the World Championship in Athletics in Moscow, Russia next August, the Sunday Observer understands.

Blake, who goes by the alias ‘the Beast’, pulled up lame before Jamaica’s National Athletic Championships, which serve as a trial for athletes hoping to represent this north Caribbean island at various international meets.“He is definitely out of the World Championship … he will not be part of Jamaica’s squad,” a senior athletics official told the Sunday Observer yesterday.“Yohan will have to do surgery soon, so there is no way that he can make the team. The injury is so sensitive that even if he is a real ‘Beast’ he cannot recover from it in time for the World Champs,” the official said.However, president of the Jamaica Administrative Athletic Association (JAAA) Dr Warren Blake said that he could not comment on the matter as he had not heard from the sprinter’s camp.“I have no comment at this time on that issue,” Dr Blake said yesterday.Blake, 23, no relation to the JAAA boss, won the gold medal in the 100 metres at the 2011 World Championship in the South Korean city of Daegu, after pre-race favourite, fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt, false-started in a major event for the first time in his career.Bolt’s compulsory withdrawal paved the way for the St James-born Blake to win his first major international medal when he left the field behind, as he took the event in 9.92 seconds over American Walter Dix (10.08) and veteran Kittitian, Kim Collins (10.09).There were early signs that Blake would not be ready for Moscow when his agent, Cubie Seegobin, issued a news release on June 18 saying: “Yohan’s coach (Glen Mills) is not satisfied with the progress of his injury, and hence his level of fitness will not allow him to compete at this time. We will continue to assess the situation and re-evaluate as we approach the World Championships.”Blake did not have to run the 100 metres at the National Championship to qualify for the event at the World Championship, as he automatically got a bye as defending champion. But he would have wanted to run the 200 metres, as well, at the local event to lineup alongside Bolt, the defending champion, in Moscow.Blake was also due to run at a meet in Edmonton, Canada, yesterday, but had to cancel.It is believed that the undisclosed injury that he sustained at a recent local meet was worse than initially thought.Blake has since been in contact with medical personnel in the United States who are examining the best option available to him, the official said.Jamaica’s sprint relay squad, which romped to victory at the London Olympic Games in a record 36.84 seconds, will thus be without two of its likely star attractions — Blake, and Asafa Powell, the latter having failed to make the squad to the championship, having finished seventh in the 100 metres.Powell, who did not compete in the sprint relay at the London Games, was thought to have been capable of getting into the top four — a passage that would have been made easier in the absence of Michael Frater, a part of the successful London 2012 quartet.Yohan Blake celebrates winning the 100m at the 2011 Daegu World Championships.

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BLAKE OUT! - To seek surgery for ‘sensitive’ injury — official