Nearly six months after Michael Schumacher suffered a serious head injury that left him in a coma, the seven-time Formula One champion has woken up and left the French hospital, where he had been staying since the accident in December, and has been transferred to a neighboring hospital in Switzerland, where his wife and two children reside.

“Michael has left the CHU Grenoble [hospital] to continue his long phase of rehabilitation. He is not in a coma anymore,” Michael’s spokeswoman Sabine Kehm said in a statement. “[Michael’s family] would like to explicitly thank all his treating doctors, nurses and therapists in Grenoble as well as the first aiders at the place of the accident, who did an excellent job in those first months.”

“The family also wishes to thank all the people who have sent Michael all the many good wishes. … We are sure it helped him,” Kehm added. “For the future we ask for understanding that his further rehabilitation will take place away from the public eye.”

While Kehm did not say where Michael was headed, the University Hospital of Lausanne in western Switzerland revealed that Schumacher had been admitted there. “He is here, he arrived this morning,” hospital spokeswoman Darcy Christen said.

The 45-year-old first entered the hospital on December 29 after suffering severe head injuries while on a ski trip at the Meribel ski resort in the French Alps. The doctors put Schumacher in a medically induced coma to rest his brain and decrease swelling. The doctors then operated on Schumacher’s brain to remove several blood clots. In January, the doctors started decreasing the medications in hopes of waking him up.

Since the accident, little has been known about Michael’s condition, and the extent of his injuries are still unclear.

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