American skiing superstar Lindsey Vonn was captured being pushed through the Los Angeles airport in a wheelchair over the weekend as she continued on her road to recovery after she was involved in a horrifying crash during the Winter Olympics in February.
Vonn has been recovering from multiple surgeries since the crash while she was competing in the women’s downhill, which resulted in a severe fracture in her left leg and nearly led doctors to amputate it.
The new images of Vonn show her sitting in a wheelchair, being assisted by personnel at the airport as she sported a dark-colored, casual outfit for her trip.
In one photo, she can be seen appearing to smile with a bag in her lap as one of the employees next to her is also smiling.
Vonn did appear to have crutches with her as well in several of the photos.
The American skier has made a miraculous recovery after her Feb. 8 injury, which took place in Italy. At one point, doctors had been in a race to keep from having to amputate her left leg after she suffered from compartment syndrome due to the complex tibial fracture that left her in intense pain, even during her initial CT scan.
“Halfway through, I started sweating. I was just in such extreme pain. I screamed at the top of my lungs: Get me out,” Vonn told Vanity Fair.
“It just wouldn’t dissipate. It wouldn’t let up. It’s seared into my brain.”
Vonn, a three-time Olympic medalist, said that she dealt with depression after the injury and it had “definitely been up and down.”
“I’d say in the last month, it’s definitely gotten better, but of course there were really low moments,” Vonn told People last week. “I hate being dependent on people, and was pretty much 100 [percent] dependent for everything. It was quite a challenge, just being in the hospital alone for two and a half weeks. Being completely immobile for that extended time period was so rough.”
But Vonn also struck a very upbeat tone when looking ahead.
Vonn told the outlet that she felt like she had “hit some nice milestones” and that she was “getting closer to being back to the real world and getting my life back.”
Vonn already has her summer plans in the works and has booked a plane ticket.
She believes that over the next six weeks she’ll be able to live more normally.
And Vonn seemed to indicate that she wasn’t done with skiing just yet.
“Whether it’s on the race course or not, I’ll definitely be going back to it,” she told People.
