Lindsey Vonn out of hospital and explains how physician ‘saved her leg from amputation’
Lindsey Vonn has admitted she almost had to have her leg amputated after her horror crash at the Winter Olympics – but it was saved by her doctor’s quick thinking
Lindsey Vonn has opened up about her horror crash
Lindsey Vonn has opened up about how her leg was saved from amputation after a horror crash at the Winter Olympics.
Vonn, 41, was looking for a fairytale return in Italy – but it quickly unravelled into a nightmare when she tore her ACL on the verge of the games. However, the American decided she would still take to the slopes despite the injury.
And during her run, Vonn would crash again – causing her to be airlifted from the slopes and to a local hospital. The American has now admitted she was close to losing her leg in a social media post.
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Speaking in an Instagram video, Vonn said: “After two weeks I finally made it out of the hospital It has been quite the journey, and by it was the most extreme and painful and challenging thing I’ve ever faced in my entire lifetime times 100.
“I’ll give you the full rundown. Basically I had a complex tibia fracture. I also fractured my fibular head and my tibia plateau. Pretty much everything was in pieces, and the reason why it was so complex was because I had compartment syndrome.
“Compartment syndrome is that when you have so much trauma to one are of your body that there’s too much blood and it gets stuck. It basically crushes everything in the compartment. So all the muscles and nerves and tendons, it all kind of dies.
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“Dr. Tom Hackett saved my life. He saved my leg from being amputated. He did what’s called a fasciotomy, where he cut open both sides of my leg and fileted it open so to speak… let it breathe and he saved me.
“I know I always talk about how everything happens for a reason, but if I hadn’t tore my ACL… Tom wouldn’t have been there and he wouldn’t have been able to save my leg.
“So I feel very lucky and grateful for him and the six-hour surgery he put in on Wednesday to rebuild it, which went amazingly well.”
Vonn added: “I was in the hospital longer than I had hoped because I had very low Hemoglobin from all of the blood loss of all of the surgeries.
“I was really struggling, pain was a little bit out of control, and I had a blood transfusion. That helped me a lot and I turned the corner, and now I am out!
“So I want to say thank you to Tom and all of the medical staff in Italy and Colorado that helped take care of me. It’s been quite the journey and it’s going to be a long road. Right now I’m very much immobile.”
Vonn added she is now back home, but will be spending the coming weeks in a wheelchair. “I hope I can be on crutches in a bit, but we’ll see…
“And I’ll probably be on crutches for two months, but I’m gonna get right to work on rehab and see what I can do and take it one step at a time like I always do.”
