Formula One great Michael Schumacher was admitted to a Paris hospital on Monday night for pioneering treatment.
The seven-time world champion, who turned 50 in January, has not been seen in public since a life-altering skiing accident in the French Alps more than five years ago, and his condition has remained a secret.
But it is understood the German was taken to the Pompidou hospital in southeast Paris in the afternoon where he will have stem-cell treatment carried out by French surgeon Philippe Menasche, a heart specialist.
The 69-year-old medic is best known for performing the world’s first embryonic cell transplant on a patient with heart failure in 2014.
Le Parisien newspaper reported: ‘It was at 3:40pm on Monday that a stretcher arrived on the first floor of the Georges Pompidou European Hospital.’
Schumacher was covered in a blue cloth that ‘completely covered his body and face,’ as he was taken into the Continuous Monitoring Unit of the Cardiovascular Surgery Department.
The security contingent was ‘made up of about ten people,’ the news outlet reported, adding that Professor Menache was ‘in charge of the group.’
