Skier Lindsey Vonn Finally Returns Home to Utah To Face ‘Hard Reality’ of Her Recovery After Nearly Losing a Leg in Winter Olympics Crash

Professional skier Lindsey Vonn has returned home to her custom-built Utah dwelling to continue her ongoing recovery from a horrifying Winter Olympics crash that put her at serious risk of losing her leg.

Vonn, 41, had to be airlifted to a hospital in Trevizo, Italy, on Feb. 8 after she fell during the women's downhill event at the Milan Cortina Games and suffered a complex tibia fracture that required multiple surgeries to mend.

The sports star was stabilized at the Italian hospital, before being flown back to the U.S. to undergo additional procedures—at least one of which saved her from potential amputation, she later revealed.

Now, nearly one month later, Vonn has been released from the hospital and allowed to return home, a bittersweet milestone that she marked in an emotional Instagram post.

Sharing photos of herself and her dog, Chance, cuddling on the couch at her Park City dwelling, the athlete opened up about her heartbreak at not being greeted by her rescue pup, Leo, who died from lung cancer while she was still in the hospital.

"Home sweet home. Feels good to sleep in my own bed," the athlete wrote. "But wheeling through the front door without Leo greeting me like always was a very hard reality. A reality I had to face. Along with many other hard realities that lay in front of me as I move forward."

Vonn went on to note that she knows she has a "hard and painful journey" ahead of her, but said she is full committed to her recovery—a point she quickly proved by posting an Instagram Stories photo of herself going through physical therapy.

"I’m focused now on therapy and getting healthy. It’s going to be a hard and painful journey but I am putting all of my energy into it, like I always do," she continued.

"I’m going to take some time for myself. I’ll give you updates when I can but right now my focus is on taking care of myself. As always, thank you for the love and support."

Vonn has not yet shared a full timeline for her recovery, nor has she revealed whether doctors know if she will be able to ski again in the future—however she did previously speak out to praise her surgeon, Dr. Tom Hackett, revealing how he saved her leg from amputation after she was diagnosed with a condition known as compartment syndrome.

"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," Vonn said in an Instagram video. “So, all the muscle and nerves and tendons, it all kind of dies. And Dr. Tom Hackett saved my leg.”

Prior to the Milan Cortina Games, Vonn had torn her ACL, an incident that she credited for Dr. Hackett's presence at the Olympics, noting that he would not have been there had she not sustained that previous injury.

"If I hadn’t torn my ACL—which I would have torn anyways 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 added.

It's unclear whether Vonn plans to spend the majority of her recovery at her Utah home, which she began building soon after she announced her retirement from professional skiing in 2019, although she later returned to the sport in November 2024 in order to compete for a spot on Team USA's Winter Olympics squad.

In 2020, the athlete opened up her home to YouTube host Graham Bensinger, sitting down with him at the 24-acre estate, where she discussed her decision to relocate from Colorado to the Park City property—revealing that she wanted to escape the many painful memories of hospital visits and injuries that surrounded her at her former home in Vail.

"I was living in Vail for pretty much most of my childhood, and I just felt like I needed a change after retirement," she shared. "Vail just reminded me of all of my hospital visits. I think I was at the Vail hospital more times than not and I knew everyone by their first names, which is not a good sign."

Vonn also wanted more privacy than she'd enjoyed in Colorado—but said she was reluctant to give up mountain life altogether, which led her to find her parcel in Park City.

Remarkably, the skier said the property was the very first one she had looked at in Utah, noting that she fell in love with the vast expanse of land on offer, coupled with the remote location, which allows her to wander around without the fear of anyone bothering her or approaching her.

She has since committed fully to her life in Utah, even becoming a part owner of the Utah Royals National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) team in 2024.

Vonn, who was born in Minnesota, moved to Colorado as a child after her talents as a skiing prodigy became clear—although she did spend several years commuting between her family home and the mountain resort in Vail before her parents made the decision to relocate to the West Coast to support her sporting dream.

While she maintained a primary residence in Colorado for much of her career, Vonn also snapped up homes in Miami and California; however, she is understood to have since sold all of those dwellings.