Michael Schumacher remains in a stable but still critical condition in hospital after suffering multiple head injuries in a skiing accident in the French Alps, his manager said yesterday.

As the retired Formula One champion began a fourth day in Grenoble's university hospital in eastern France, Sabine Kehm said there had been "no significant changes" observed by doctors since they reported a slight improvement in his condition on Tuesday.

“Michael’s condition has been supervised all the night and has remained stable over the night and also now,” she said, cautioning, however, that it was still premature to be optimistic about his recovery.

"For the moment this is good news," Kehm said. "However, I do not want to go into any further prospects because this is much too early, as the doctors were saying yesterday. It's good to have a stable condition but still overall the situation is still critical."

45th birthday
Schumacher, whose 45th birthday is on Friday, remains in a medically induced coma that is aimed at reducing swelling on the brain. The medical team treating him has said he suffered multiple lesions, haematoma and bruising to the brain when he fell on a ski slope near the resort of Meribel, apparently tripping and hitting his head on a rock.

Kehm declined to comment on the details of his condition, saying she was “not a doctor” and indicating that entering into prognostics was in any case futile.

“I don’t want to go into speculation about what will happen in the next days. We have to really see from day to day. For the moment it’s stable. That’s good. And I don’t know what will happen in one week,” she told journalists.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, the director of the hospital said a “slight improvement” had been seen in Schumacher’s condition following a second operation on Monday night.

But her surgical colleagues warned there was “a long way to go” and that the seven-times Formula One champion was not out of danger.

With him in the hospital are understood to be his wife, Corinna, two children, Mick (14) and Gina-Maria (16) brother Ralf, also a former racing driver, and father, Rolf. “Mentally, the family is obviously not feeling very good,” said Kehm.

On Tuesday Kehm gave the fullest indication to date of how Schumacher’s accident, which occurred shortly after 11am on Sunday, happened.

Rejecting speculation he had been skiing at high speed when he fell, she said he had stopped shortly before the accident to help a friend who had fallen on the slopes. As Schumacher set off again, Kehm said, he appeared to hit a rock and was "catapulted in the air", falling "apparently head down" on to another rock.

'Unfortunate circumstance'
"[IT] was an extremely bad and unfortunate circumstance and not because he was speeding too much," she said.

“I have spoken with several people, also ski teachers, and they tell me that that can happen even at 10km/h. It was just very, very unfortunate.”

The prosecutor’s office in the resort town of Albertville, which is overseeing the investigation into the accident, confirmed that Schumacher’s helmet had split when he fell and hit a rock.

“It broke apart in two pieces,” an official said.

However, the official said it was too early to infer that the helmet had broken because of the speed at which Schumacher was skiing downhill.

“It’s too early to draw conclusions about excessive speed,” said the official. “It will take two or three more days to know exactly what happened.”

Guardian Service