The former race-car driver was placed in a medically induced coma for six months after suffering a severe head injury during a skiing accident in 2013.
Syndicated Story By PesaCheck
This Facebook post claiming that world-renowned German Formula One driver, Michael Schumacher, has been in a coma for the past six years is PARTLY FALSE.
According to the post, Schumacher woke up to his wife after six years in a coma. Corrina Schumacher, the driver’s wife, the post claims, had spent the family’s money on his treatment and had fallen into bankruptcy.
“After 6 years of coma, German Schumacher wakes up and meets his wife. His wife who spent most of her money on her husband’s treatment before bankruptcy. Despite the big money Schumacher himself received from his income in Formula 1 as he dominated the race for years and despite all the huge sponsorship contracts he had, all the money was spent,” reads the post in part.
A report by the BBC indicates that the race-car driver was indeed placed in a medically induced coma after a severe head injury he sustained following a skiing accident in the French Alps on 29 December 2013.
The report, dated 16 June 2014, further indicates that Schumacher had been discharged from The Grenoble Alpes University Hospital in the South-East of France, six months after his medically induced coma.
Another report by The Guardian dated June 16, 2014 also indicates that the seven-time F1 champion was out of the medically induced coma. This was after Schumacher’s manager at the time, Sabine Kehm, released a statement saying, “ Michael has left the CHU Grenoble [hospital] to continue his long phase of rehabilitation. He is not in a coma anymore.”
The same was reported by CNN here.
The claim that Schumacher was in a coma for six years, is therefore not true.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that retired race-car driver, Michael Schumacher, has been in a coma for the past six years and finds it to be PARTLY FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Cynthia Ilako and edited by PesaCheck chief copy editor Rose Lukalo. The article was approved for publication by managing editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.