On the 23rd, American alpine skiing legend Lindsey Vonn revealed that after her severe crash during the women’s downhill at the Milan—Cortina Winter Olympics, she was lucky to receive emergency treatment from team doctor Tom Hackett, otherwise she might have faced amputation of her left leg.
The 41-year-old star said via Instagram that she suffered a horrific fall just 13 seconds after the much-anticipated race began, resulting in compartment syndrome in her left leg—a condition where severe trauma causes pressure between muscle compartments to suddenly rise, restricting blood flow and requiring emergency surgery.
Vonn, the 2010 Winter Olympic downhill champion and the second-most successful female skier in World Cup history, said that Dr. Hackett “saved her leg.”
“He’s the one who saved me and kept my leg from being amputated. He performed what’s called a fasciotomy—he sliced open both sides of my lower leg, basically ‘opening it up’ so the leg could breathe, simply put. He saved me.”
Over a week before the competition, Vonn had already torn her left ACL, yet she insisted on competing in the Olympics. However, she lost control going through a gate, crashing hard and fast onto the snow. Her screams could be clearly heard during the television broadcast. She stated that this time she fractured her tibia, fibular head, and tibial plateau, and also broke her right ankle.
After being airlifted by helicopter to an Italian hospital, she underwent four surgeries, only returning to the U.S. last week for another marathon 6-hour operation.
“This journey has been completely insane—the most extreme, painful, and challenging injury of my life, and multiplying it by 100 wouldn't be an exaggeration.”
Fortunately, she has now been discharged and is expected to transition from a wheelchair to walking with crutches in a few weeks. She said the multiple surgeries kept her in the hospital much longer than anticipated. Due to severe blood loss, her hemoglobin levels were “extremely low”, leaving her fragile, and the pain was “completely out of control at times.” She noted that after a transfusion, her condition improved significantly.
Vonn expects that all her bones will take about a year to fully heal, after which she will decide whether to undergo another surgery to fully repair her ACL.
“But I’ll start rehabilitation right away to see what I can do, as always, taking it one step at a time. Honestly, I can’t even describe how much it hurts and how hard it’s been. This is definitely not the way I imagined ending my Olympic journey.”