Lindsey Vonn Says Torn ACL May Have Saved Her Leg From Amputation After Olympic Crash
The 41-year-old skier revealed her pre-Olympic ACL tear meant the right doctor was there to “save my leg."
When Lindsey Vonn chose to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics despite tearing her ACL days earlier, critics questioned the risk.
Turns out, though, that torn ACL may have saved her leg.
In an Instagram video posted Monday, Vonn detailed the extent of her injuries following her terrifying crash in the women's downhill.
"Oh well guys, after two weeks, I finally made it out of the hospital," Vonn said. "It has been quite the journey and by far the most extreme and painful and challenging injury I've ever faced in my entire life times 100."
Vonn revealed she suffered a complex tibia fracture, along with fractures to her fibular head and tibial plateau, saying "just kind of everything was in pieces."
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The real danger, though, was compartment syndrome.
She explained: "Compartment syndrome is when you have so much trauma to one area of your body that there's too much blood, and it gets stuck, and it basically crushes everything in the compartment. So all the muscle and nerves and tendons, it all kind of dies."
Vonn credited Dr. Tom Hackett with saving her limb.
"He saved my leg from being amputated," she said. "He did what's called a fasciotomy where he cut open like both sides of my leg, kind of filleted it open, so to speak, let it breathe, and he saved me."
Lindsey Vonn skis during the Women's Downhill training on day zero of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
(Photo by Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images)
In a wild twist, the ACL tear turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
"I always talk about 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," she said. "So, I feel very lucky and grateful for him for this 6-hour surgery he put in on Wednesday to rebuild it, which went amazingly well."
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The 41-year-old also revealed she broke her right ankle, required a blood transfusion after "very low hemoglobin from all the blood loss of all the surgeries," and is currently confined to a wheelchair.
Despite how it ended, Vonn says she has "no regrets."
"I wish it had ended differently really, but I'd rather go down swing than not at all," she said. "It really knocked me down, but I'm like Rocky. I'll just keep getting back up."
That does seem to be the story of Lindsey's life.