Vonn Finally Gets Her ACL Back After Nine Surgeries and an Olympic Nightmare
VAIL, Colo. — Lindsey Vonn is home and on the mend after a five-plus-hour operation that cleared the last of the metal from her shattered left leg and finally rebuilt the ACL she has been living without for months.
In a social media update, the 42-year-old said the surgery “went well” and that she is now on the final stretch of recovery. She thanked surgeons Dr. Tom Hackett and Dr. Randy Viola, along with Lindsay Winninger, the Stifel U.S. Ski Team, medical staff, and her family.
The procedure, her ninth since the February 8 crash at the Milano Cortina Olympics, removed the plates and screws that had held her tibia together while the bones healed. Those same plates had blocked doctors from reconstructing the ACL she tore roughly nine days before the Games in a World Cup race at Crans-Montana.
Vonn raced in Cortina anyway, crashed 13 seconds into the downhill, and suffered a complex tibia fracture, tibial plateau damage, and a broken right ankle. Compartment syndrome nearly cost her the leg; an emergency fasciotomy by Dr. Hackett saved it. Multiple operations followed to stabilize the fractures.
With the hardware now gone and a new ACL in place, Vonn faces the standard six-to-nine-month recovery, plus extra time for the screw holes in the bone to fill in. The four-time World Cup overall champion and 2010 Olympic downhill gold medalist has left the door open on a return to the slopes but has not committed to racing again.
