Lindsey Vonn Injury Update: Five Surgeries Later, Skier Defends Risking Her Life on a Torn ACL

On Friday, Feb. 20, Vonn posted from a US hospital bed after her fifth operation since her crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. 'Made it through surgery... it took a bit more than 6 hours to complete,' she wrote on Instagram, crediting Dr. Hackett for doing 'an incredible job' and thanking Dr. Viola for assisting. The post included a video of her being wheeled through the hospital, plus photos of the metalwork and the scans — evidence, in her own visual shorthand, that this was not just a 'broken leg' in the casual way people say it at the pub.​

'With the extent of the trauma, I've been struggling a bit post op and have not yet been able to be discharged from the hospital just yet... almost there,' she added. 'Baby steps.'​

The Long Road From Cortina to the US

The injury itself traces back to Feb. 8, when Vonn crashed during the women's downhill at the Winter Olympics and suffered what has repeatedly been described as a complex tibia fracture. She was airlifted from the slopes to a clinic in Cortina before being transferred to a hospital in Treviso, where she underwent surgery to stabilize the fracture.

Cortina d'Ampezzo is the storied Italian resort hosting much of the alpine action, while Treviso is a city on the plains — reachable by road — where the medical infrastructure is built for major trauma, not just ski-week sprains. Vonn ultimately had four surgeries in Italy, which she said were necessary so she could safely fly back to the United States. Earlier this week, she returned by private plane while confined to a hospital bed—an image that underlines how immobilizing the situation became.

Then came surgery number five, her first back home, and the first update that sounded less like grit and more like the honest fatigue that comes after repeated anesthesia, repeated pain, repeated 'good news' that still hurts.​

The Risk She Took — And Still Defends

Vonn has also been unusually blunt about the gamble she took before the crash: she competed despite a torn ACL. That fact alone is enough to make a non-skier wince — and, depending on your taste for sporting martyrdom, to wonder who around her should have said 'no' a little louder.​

But Vonn is not backing away from the choice. In a separate social media post quoted by CBS Sports, she framed it as a deliberate trade-off: 'I was willing to risk and push and sacrifice for something I knew I was absolutely capable of doing.' She went further, rejecting the tidy morality tale that pain should automatically mean stopping: she would rather crash 'while giving it my all' than ski within herself and live with 'what if?'​

Even after she arrived back in the US, she hinted there was more damage than she initially understood, writing that her injury was 'a lot more severe than just a broken leg' and that she was still 'wrapping my head around it' and the 'road ahead.' Now she says she'll explain what it all means soon.​