Lindsey Vonn says she came close to having her leg amputated in the aftermath of her crash during the Olympic downhill earlier this month.
The 41-year-old sustained a complex tibia fracture to her left leg in the crash and underwent multiple surgeries in Italy before being flown back to the US for further treatment last week. But in an Instagram post on Monday, the American said the crash also led to compartment syndrome in her leg. The condition occurs after traumatic injuries such as falls from heights and car crashes. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “compartment syndrome happens when there’s too much pressure around your muscles. The pressure restricts the flow of blood, fresh oxygen and nutrients to your muscles and nerves. Compartment syndrome is extremely painful.” The lack of blood flow can lead to permanent damage to patients.
“When you have so much trauma to one area of your body so that there’s too much blood and it gets stuck and it basically crushes everything,” Vonn said in her post.
She said that Dr Tom Hackett, an orthopedic surgeon who works with Vonn and Team USA, was responsible for saving her leg. “He filleted it open and let it breathe, and he saved me,” she said.
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Vonn added that Hackett was only in Italy because he was monitoring her after she tore her ACL in the run-up to the Olympics. “If I hadn’t had done that, Tom wouldn’t have been there [and he] wouldn’t have been able to save my leg,” she said.
Vonn revealed that she is out of hospital for the first time since the day of her crash, although she is yet to return to her home.
“After almost 2 weeks of laying in a hospital bed almost completely immobile, I’m finally well enough to move to a hotel. It’s not home yet, but it’s a huge step!” she wrote.
Vonn also broke her ankle in the crash, and she says it will take some time for her to recover from her injuries.
“It will take around a year for all of the bones to heal and then I will decide if I want to take out all the metal or not, and then go back into surgery and finally fix my ACL,” she wrote.
In an Instagram post on Sunday, Vonn said she had no regrets about competing at the Olympics, despite her injuries.
“I showed up and did what most thought was impossible at my age with a partial knee replacement,” she wrote. “These memories I’ll have forever and I’m grateful for every one of them. Every moment was amazing. Every moment was worth it.”
