Olympic ski racer Lindsey Vonn said Monday that her left leg almost had to be amputated due to the injuries she sustained in a devastating crash in Italy earlier this month.In a video posted to Instagram, Vonn explained her doctor had to perform a fasciotomy, an emergency surgery to relieve pressure in the muscles. “He did what’s called a fasciotomy, where he cut open both sides of my leg — kind of fileted it open, so to speak, let it breathe — and he saved me,” Vonn said.She explained she had a complex tibia fracture; she fractured her fibular head and tubal plateau. Vonn also had “compartment syndrome,” which she explained as having “so much trauma to one area of your body that there’s too much blood and it gets stuck.”“It basically crushes everything in the compartment, so all the muscle and nerves and tendons, it all kind of dies,” she said.Days before the Winter Olympics began, Vonn, 41, ruptured her ACL, but still decided to compete. On Feb. 8, she crashed during the women’s downhill event, fracturing her left leg, and she was airlifted off the course. She said if she hadn’t torn her ACL, her doctor would not have been with her and would not have been able to save her leg from being amputated. According to Vonn, her doctor performed a six-hour surgery Wednesday. The injury kept her in the hospital for two weeks, which was longer than she expected since she needed a blood transfusion. Vonn said she is currently using a wheelchair because she also broke her right ankle and hopes to transfer to crutches soon.“I can’t tell you how painful it’s been,” Vonn said. “It’s been really hard, and it was definitely not the way I wanted to end my Olympics, but it’s been really inspiring to watch my teammates. Everyone’s just been incredible, and watching Team USA dominate has been really uplifting. So I’m really proud of all you guys.”Vonn won gold in downhill skiing at the 2010 Winter Olympics becoming the first American woman to do so.After Vonn ruptured her ACL days before the 2026 Olympics, she shared her workout routine on social media, assuring fans that she wasn’t going to give up. On Monday, she said she wishes things would have ended differently. “I’d rather go down swinging than not try at all,” Vonn said. “And I think what I was able to achieve was more than anyone expected to begin with. ... This was just one blip on the radar. It was one thing that I wish didn’t happen. But life is life, and we have to take the punches as they come.”Close