Lindsay Vonn’s ski injury at the Olympics was devastating

Wow. This is from the NY Times.

There was a real chance she would have to have had an amputation.

Two and a half weeks after her crash during the Olympic downhill race in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Lindsey Vonn has returned to the U.S. and is finally out of the hospital.

“Video footage from the fall shows her right arm hooking the gate, causing her to twist and fall rather than her knee giving way,” says Bagley. “Based on that mechanism, the fall appears to have been triggered by upper-body contact with the gate rather than knee instability or her knee brace.”

Vonn revealed that her injuries included a complex tibia fracture, a fracture of her fibula head and her tibial plateau: “Everything was in pieces,” she said.

“When Vonn crashed, she was careening down a mountain at close to 70 miles per hour,” says Bagley. “At that velocity, the forces involved are comparable to a serious road-traffic collision.”

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In Vonn’s case, the fracture extended into the knee joint, which Bagley says makes it even more serious: “When a break involves a joint surface, restoring perfect alignment becomes critical to long-term function,” she adds.

Vonn has also revealed that she suffered from compartment syndrome, a serious condition where excessive bleeding causes pressure to build dangerously in a closed compartment. Typically, this is an area in a limb containing muscles, blood vessels and nerves, usually enclosed by bone or other rigid structures.