Olympic legend Lindsey Vonn just revealed the gory details of the injury she suffered during the Olympic downhill event and it is was far worse than initially reported. Lindsey took to social media to explain the severity of the complex tibia fracture which she called the most extreme and painful and challenging injury of her life.
“I had compartment syndrome. Compartment syndrome is when you have so much trauma to one area of your body, that there’s too much blood, and it gets stuck, and it basically crushes everything in the compartment. All of the muscle and nerves and tendons, it all kind of dies. And Dr. Tom Hackett had saved my life. He saved my leg from being amputated.”
Dr. Hackett’s six-hour surgery to rebuild the severely damaged leg went well but Vonn isn’t out of the wood yet as she is currently wheelchair bound and is expected to spend at least two month on crutches.
“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.” -Lindsey Vonn
Despite the traumatic Olympic ending injury, Vonn says she has no regrets and she preferred to “go down swinging than not try at all.”
Lindsey Vonn:
I’m finally out of the hospital!!! 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!
I hope I explained my injury well enough. I’m not a doctor so if I don’t explain something perfectly please forgive me. When the injury happened the situation was quite challenging in many ways but in the end, the situation was brought back into control. Again, thank you Dr Tom Hackett.
Now I will focus on rehab and progressing from a wheelchair to crutches in a few weeks. 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.
It will be a long road but I’ll get there. At least I’m out of the hospital.
Love you all
-Lindsey Vonn
