Lindsey Vonn says her leg could have been amputated if not for the heroics of her doctor as she reflected on her horror crash at the Winter Olympics after finally leaving hospital.
American skier Vonn, who was a major contender in the women’s downhill, clipped a gate and fell heavily in Cortina. on Sunday 8 February. She had to be airlifted to hospital and over the past fortnight has undergone multiple surgeries on a complex leg fracture.
She returned home to the US last week to have her fifth and final surgery and has now finally checked out of hospital, beginning her long road to recovery.
In a wheelchair for the foreseeable future, Vonn fought back tears in a video from her Colorado home but admitted that things could have gone far worse.
“I had a complex tibia fracture, I also fractured my fibia head and the reason it was so complex was because I had compartment syndrome,” Vonn explained on Instagram.
“Compartment syndrome is when you have so much trauma to one area that there is too much blood and it gets stuck. It basically crushes everything – muscles, nerves, tendons, it dies.
“Dr Tom Hackett saved my leg from being amputated. He did what is called a fasciotomy, he cut open both sides of my leg and let it breathe and he saved me.
“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. Life is life, we have to take the punches as they come.”
Vonn competed in the women’s downhill despite tearing her ACL just nine days before the Winter Olympics kicked off, something that meant Dr Hackett was on hand for the event.
It proved a fortunate twist of fate for Vonn, who had Dr Hackett by her side from the moment she was airlifted off the slopes.
“If I hadn’t torn my ACL, which I would have done anyways in this crash, Doctor Tom Hackett wouldn’t have been there,” Vonn added. “He wouldn’t have been able to save my leg.
“He saved my leg from being amputated. I always talk about everything happening for a reason… I feel very lucky and grateful for him, for this six-hour surgery.”
On top of the complex leg fracture, Vonn revealed she broke her ankle in the crash and later needed a blood transfusion in the thick of the surgeries, which saw her haemoglobin drop to a dangerously low level.
“I was in the hospital a little longer than I hoped because I had very low haemoglobin from the blood loss from all the surgeries,” Vonn said. “I was really struggling, the pain was a little bit out of control and I had to have a blood transfusion.
“That helped me a lot and I turned the corner and now I am out. I am in a wheelchair right now, I am very much immobile and I will be in a wheelchair for a while because I also broke my right ankle.
“I hope I can be on crutches in a little bit but we will see.”
