Dr. Brian Sutterer explains the break in Lindsey Vonn’s leg. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Lindsey Vonn has had a rough go in recent weeks. First, a crash at a World Cup race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland tore the ACL in her left knee. Then, not soon after, skiing on an injured leg, she crashed again in the Olympics and broke her leg. Both wrecks were hard to watch — particularly the second, which saw her unable to move on the run as spectators looked on — and both required her to be airlifted to hospital. Vonn sustained a “complex tibia fracture” in the second mishap that required multiple surgeries.
“I was simply five inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash,” she wrote after.
After three surgeries, Brian Sutterer, a doctor of Sports Medicine with a YouTube channel, is explaining her injury, surgery, and what recovery might look like (below).
Despite her injuries, Vonn isn’t regretful. “While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets,” she said. “Standing in the starting gate was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. I also knew that racing was a risk. It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport. And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is also the beauty of life; we can try. I tried. I dreamt. I jumped.”
