Lindsey Vonn is finally out of the hospital and ready to share everything she has endured over the last two weeks — including almost losing her leg.
“I’m finally out of the hospital!!! 🙌🏻,” Vonn, 41, wrote in the caption of her video update, posted via Instagram on Monday, February 23. “After almost 2 weeks of laying in a hospital bed almost completely immobile, I’m finally well enough to move to a hotel. It’s not home yet, but it’s a huge step!”
Vonn crashed just 13 seconds into the women’s downhill competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics, where she competed on a completely torn ACL. She was airlifted to the hospital, where she underwent multiple surgeries in the immediate aftermath of the crash.
She went into further detail about her ordeal in the video, revealing she had a complex tibia fracture, fractured fibular head, fractured tibial plateau and a broken ankle.
“It has been quite the journey and by far the most extreme and painful and challenging injury I have ever faced in my entire life times a hundred,” Vonn said.
She also revealed that she had compartment syndrome, when pressure builds up within a muscle compartment, restricting blood flow to her leg.
“Dr. Tom Hackett saved my leg,” Vonn continued. “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.”
She continued, “I always talk about [how] everything happens for a reason, but if I hadn’t torn my ACL, which I would have torn anyway with this crash, if I hadn’t done that, Tom wouldn’t have been there. He wouldn’t have been able to save my leg, so I feel very lucky and grateful for him, for the six hour surgery he put in on Wednesday to rebuild it, which went amazingly well.”
Vonn later detailed the “out of control” pain she experienced before detailing the “long road” she faces to recovery.
“I’m in a wheelchair right now. I’m very much immobile,” she said. “I’ll be in a wheelchair for a while because I also broke my right ankle. So I hope I could be on crutches in a little bit but we’ll see. I’ll probably at least be on crutches for two months but I’m gonna get right to work on rehab and see what I can do and take it one step at a time like I always do.”
Vonn ended her update with a thank you to the medical staff who treated her and everyone who has supported her since her accident.
“It’s going to be a long road but I always fight, keep going, no regrets and I just appreciate all the love and support. It’s been really amazing,” she said. “I’d rather go down swinging than not try at all and I think what I was able to achieve was more than anyone expected to begin with.”
Vonn also revealed in the caption that it will take “around a year” for her bones to heal, at which point she will decide if she wants to have the metal removed from her leg. Then, finally, she will undergo surgery to repair her torn ACL, which she sustained before the 2026 Olympics.
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