There is something which does irk me a bit though which is when you see comments like Hamilton’s about it being some kind of test of character. It implies that this is a situation over which the victim can have some kind of influence, and that brings the implication that if the sufferer does not pull through, then the have somehow failed a test. When in fact, the reality is that if Schumacher does never wake up, it is because the man we all love and support effectively left us in December.
It’s like when people talk about someone ‘losing their battle’ with a terminal illness. Death is an inevitable fact of life; everyone reading this sentence will die one day, myself included, and there is no act of will which can change this fact. When my life does inevitably reach its terminus, I would rather people didn’t think that I had died because I had somehow failed to stay alive through willpower.