An NFL team doctor had warned it “might not end well” for Lindsey Vonn after she chose to compete at the Olympics despite a torn ACL. Those fears unfortunately proved right after she crashed, even if the ACL wasn’t entirely to blame. Since then, Vonn has undergone three surgeries, but uncertainty still looms over what’s next for her. Amid this, the NFL doctor has weighed in again, with another alarming claim.

After analyzing visuals of Lindsey Vonn’s left leg that showed external fixators extending from her tibia to her femur, San Diego Chargers’ former sport’s doctor David J. Chao said, “it [the erector set] goes across her knee joint that means she has significant damage to her knee, whether it’s a condylar fracture, tibial plateau fracture, whether it’s knee dislocation, instability of some sort.”

Dr. Chao further claimed that beyond the ACL tear, there is likely some substantial soft tissue damage as well. Thus, in his view, the injury is ‘significant’ and three surgeries may not be the end of it.

“She’s probably going to have, and I say this in the kindest of ways, a dozen surgeries. In terms of washouts for debridements. She’s going to at least have one more surgery to definitively take off the erector set and fix the problem, but it’s likely multiple still,” he said on X, while sending out prayers to her. 

This critical analysis comes just 2 days after Lindsey Vonn shared that she’d undergone a successful third surgery. She said she is making progress and, although recovery has been slow, she believes she’ll be okay. Still, based on Dr. Chao’s latest remarks, it looks like she may have to hand in there a little while longer.

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After all, a ‘tibia fracture,’ is a complex injury. According to the Yale School of Medicine website, it often means the bone is shattered or broken in multiple places, something that can require several surgeries to fully repair. What is even more depressing is the fact that a recovery timeline for such a brutal injury is anything between 8 to 11 months. 

Thankfully, Vonn seems to be aware of the long road ahead. In her first update after he crash, she’d confirmed, “Unfortunately, I sustained a complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly.”

But the silver lining in this situation, as Dr. Chao agrees is, “She went out doing what she loved and trying to win the gold medal.”

In fact, the alpine skiing queen has gone as far as clarifying that she had no regrets at all, despite going into the race with an ACL injury. 

Lindsey Vonn has no regrets about her Olympics crash

Vonn stepped into the 2026 Winter Olympics with a courage that not many have demonstrated in the realm of sport. Just 9 days before the Winter Olympics kicked off, Vonn crashed in Crans Montana, resulting in a 100% torn ACL. Many doctors believed she should have stepped back in order to recover. However, Vonn decided to go. 

On the day of her first Olympic race of 2026, she had a brutal crash that resulted in her being airlifted to the hospital. Yet, Vonn had no regrets.

After the upsetting incident, the American legend shared, “Yesterday, my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a storybook ending or a fairy tale; it was just life.”

She further wrote in an Instagram post, “While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets.”

She wanted to give it a try, and that’s exactly what she did. Similar to 2024, when Vonn was made a comeback, years after being forced to bid farewell to the sport in 2019 because of her injuries. 

Even know, she knows that the process of recovery is going to be a long haul, but she’s looking at it with great optimism.