In 2013, Olivier Véran worked at Grenoble hospital, where Michael Schumacher was hospitalized after his serious skiing accident in Méribel, Savoie. Ten years later, the government spokesman remembers.
That was almost 10 years ago. On December 29, 2013, the racing driver Michael Schumacher is hospitalized in Grenoble hospital after a serious skiing accident in Méribel, Savoie. Immediately, the news is the subject of an incredible media craze. Hundreds of journalists from all over the world converge in France to relay the information, and more than 248 Facebook pages anticipate the death of the seven-time world champion. A German newspaper, Picture, even goes so far as to reconstruct Schumacher’s descent and accident, in order to illustrate as faithfully as possible the accident of the red devil…
At the heart of this bewildering media craze, a doctor: Olivier Veran. At the time, the one who now holds the position of spokesperson for the French government provided neurology consultations at the Grenoble hospital. Ten years later, he remembers with tenseness the sordid tumult provoked by the misfortune of a man. “It was so over the tophe confides in the columns of the last issue of Closeravailable on newsstands this Friday, September 30. There is even a foreign journalist who disguised himself as a priest to enter his room.” As a result, the doctor had made a drastic request to his colleagues: “Seeing the extent of his hospitalization, I asked my neurology department not to communicate anything to me on his medical file.”
The accident of Michael Schumacher, a disturbing overmediatization
At the time, others than Olivier Véran had been disturbed by the media coverage of Schumacher’s accident. Noting the attention the German pilot was receiving, the families of the other patients at Grenoble hospital had expressed their concern, forcing Jean-François Payen, head of the resuscitation service at Grenoble University Hospital, to take publicly the word:I want to reassure the other ‘ordinary’ patients of the CHUhe said at a press conference. They are treated with the same attention and the same therapeutic commitment by all of our medical and care teams as Michael Schumacher. Our profession is not only dedicated to one or two people, however renowned they may be..”
Since his terrible accident, Michael Schumacher has never reappeared in public. According to the documentary Schumacherreleased in September 2021, the seven-time world champion would keep very serious consequences of his fall in skiing. He would be unable to walk, stand and communicate.
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