American skier Lindsey Vonn revealed that emergency surgery prevented the amputation of her left leg following a severe crash in the women's downhill at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The 41-year-old suffered a complex tibia fracture and compartment syndrome during the February 8 race in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. Vonn credited her doctor for the life-saving intervention and expressed no regrets about competing despite a prior knee injury.
Lindsey Vonn, a 41-year-old American alpine skier, crashed just 13 seconds into her run in the women's downhill event at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on February 8 in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. She clipped a gate and sailed off course, leading to severe injuries including a complex tibia fracture in her left leg, a shattered tibial plateau, and compartment syndrome, which caused excessive pressure from blood and swelling that restricted blood flow. Vonn also broke her right ankle in the incident.
In an Instagram post and video shared around two weeks later, Vonn described the injury as "the most extreme and painful" of her career. "When you have so much trauma to one area of your body so that there's too much blood and it gets stuck and it basically crushes everything," she explained. The crash exacerbated a pre-existing anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear in her left knee from a World Cup race in Crans-Montana shortly before the Olympics.
Vonn was airlifted to a hospital in Treviso, Italy, where she underwent multiple surgeries, including a six-hour fasciotomy performed by Dr. Tom Hackett, an orthopedic surgeon for Team USA. "He filleted it open [and] let it breathe, and he saved me," Vonn said. She noted that Hackett's presence in Cortina was due to her knee injury, stating, "If I hadn't had done that, Tom wouldn't have been there [and he] wouldn't have been able to save my leg." Vonn spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, dealing with low hemoglobin levels from blood loss, requiring a transfusion, and experiencing intense pain.
Now discharged and using a wheelchair, Vonn plans to transition to crutches in a few weeks and anticipates a year for her bones to heal fully before ACL repair surgery. Despite the setback, she has no regrets about her comeback after a six-year retirement, saying, "I'd rather go down swinging than not try at all." Her father, Alan Kildow, suggested retirement, but Vonn remains determined: "Life is life and we have to take the punches that come." Teammate Breezy Johnson won gold in the event.
