Lindsey Vonn Shares Graphic Details of Her Leg Injury

Fresh from multiple hospitalizations and surgical procedures, American skier Lindsey Vonn is revealing the frightening diagnosis she received after her horrific Olympic crash.

Vonn explained on Instagram that “kind of everything was in pieces,” having suffered a complex tibia fracture and fractures to her fibular head and tibial plateau.

The skiing legend crashed on Feb. 8 just 13 seconds into the women’s downhill event at the 2026 Winter Olympics at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. The crash resulted in Vonn breaking her leg, and she was immediately airlifted from the scene and treated for her injuries, first with an emergency surgery at a medical facility in nearby Treviso, Italy.

COMING HOME

Lindsey Vonn Shares Update After Devastating Olympic Crash

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Vonn returned to the United States on Feb. 17, with four surgeries already under her belt in Italy.

“My leg is still in pieces…but I’m finally HOME!” she told her followers. After her fifth surgery, which took place in the U.S., the athlete revealed her injuries were far more serious than initially believed.

She now reveals why her injuries were so horrific, writing, “The reason why it was so complex was because I had compartment syndrome.”

Compartment syndrome, she explained, is a frightening medical diagnosis that can sometimes lead to amputation. It occurs when “there’s too much pressure around your muscles,“ thereby restricting ”the flow of blood, fresh oxygen, and nutrients to your muscles and nerves,“ according to the Cleveland Clinic, which noted that the condition can be debilitatingly painful.

“It basically crushes everything in the ‘compartment,’ so all the muscle and nerves and tendons, it all kind of dies,” Vonn said.

Vonn thanked her doctor for preventing the worst from happening.

“Dr. Tom Hackett saved my life,” she wrote. “He saved my leg from being amputated. He did what’s called a fasciotomy, where he cut open both sides of my leg and kind of filleted it open so to speak, let it breathe, and he saved me.”

Vonn, 41, had returned to the Olympics with great hopes after an eight-year hiatus. Vonn has medalled three times at the Olympics, including getting gold at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

A week prior to her return to the ice, Vonn ruptured her ACL. After still deciding to compete, her comeback story was cut short by the crash.

Her crash was unrelated to the rupture of her ACL.

“I was simply 5 inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash,” she posted on Instagram after her bad break.

DUDE, DOLCE

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Vonn is planning to continue working toward a full recovery, which she says will take nearly a year.

“Now I will focus on rehab and progressing from a wheelchair to crutches in a few weeks,” she said. “It will be a long road but I’ll get there. At least I’m out of the hospital!”