Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Lindsey Vonn narrowly avoided her left leg being amputated due to her injuries from a 2026 Winter Olympics ski crash, she said Monday.
The American Alpine skiing sensation, who tore her left ACL in another crash a week before the Games, sustained multiple fractures in the same leg and right ankle in a second accident during the women's downhill Feb. 8 in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
She spent two weeks in hospitals, but was finally released after what she called the "most extreme, painful and challenging injury" she's ever faced. She noted in a social media video that she sustained a complex tibia fracture and factures to her fibular head and tibial plateau, which led to compartment syndrome.
Compartment syndrome is defined as excessive pressure build-up in muscle compartments, reducing blood flow and damaging muscles, nerves and tendons.
"Dr. Tom Hackett saved my leg," Vonn said. "He saved my leg from being amputated. He did what is called a fasciotomy, where he cut open both sides of my leg, kinda filleted it open, so to speak, let it breathe and he saved me."
