Michael Schumacher injury: Natasha Richardson's tragic case shows how brain damage can deceive Now the incident involving Michael Schumacher has proved what emergency doctors have warned: though minor blows to the head are mostly harmless, they can be lethal. There is a condition doctors gruesomely describe as the "walk and die" syndrome, where an injury at first appears to have had little impact on a person, but causes bleeding and brain swelling in the skull with sometimes fatal consequences. It is likely that Schumacher suffered a subdural haematoma as a result of his fall, a bleed in the brain caused by the severing of a blood vessel. The brain is like a blancmange and when it is shaken in the wooden box of the skull the vessels that supply it with blood are vulnerable to rupture. Schumacher's helmet will have offered some protection - he would certainly be dead if he had been without it, his doctors said - but it is clear it was not enough. Sometimes the bleeding starts slowly, leading to a gradual build up of pressure, which appears to be what happened in Richardson's case and now in Schumacher's. Emergency treatment normally involves drilling a hole through the skull to drain the blood or creating a window by removing a piece of bone to allow room for swollen tissues, which would otherwise be crushed and destroyed by the pressure. Schumacher's doctors said he had been placed in a medically induced coma - one deliberately brought about using drugs - which will reduce the brain's need for oxygen. This is important as any damaged blood vessels will be unable to deliver the usual amount of oxygen and nutrients. He is also likely to have been treated with diuretics, which reduce the amount of fluid in tissues increasing the production of urine, to reduce pressure inside the brain. He may in addition have received anti-seizure drugs, as victims of head injury are more likely to suffer seizures in the first week following the injury, which could further damage the brain. The outcome is as unpredictable as the accident that caused the injury. His doctors, his family and the world can only watch and hope.d up before last week's deadline begin to draw medical benefits under the Obamacare reforms. Critics will be watching to see how the system works for Obamacare users who require medical attention in the early days of January. Problems are likely to be seized upon by Republicans and others on the right, while a smooth roll out of this next phase of the President's reforms would help the Democrats make their case to the electorate during the mid-term elections next year. As Mark Bertolini, the chief executive of giant insurance provider Aetna said earlier this month: "The big moment of truth is 12.01am on January 1, when a mother is standing in a pharmacy, with the baby in her arms, trying to get her script filled."