- Olympic champion swimmer Ryan Lochte has shared that he has spent the past 10 months recovering from a serious car accident that “snapped his femur in half”.
- The six-time gold medalist said he crashed into a garbage truck while picking up his children from school
- He said he realized that, “in the blink of an eye, your life can be over,” and is working to recover from the accident last November
Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte shared that he was in a serious car accident last November and has been recovering from serious injuries — including a broken leg — ever since.
Lochte, 40, and wife Kayla, 33, shared a video together on their Instagram pages on August 28, showing the six-time gold medalist at various stages on his road to recovery.
The video begins with Lochte being pushed into his home in a wheelchair by son Caiden Zane, 7. A Christmas tree is visible in the corner as his two children — Georgia June, 1, and Liv Rae, 5 — play in the background.
Ryan Lochte runs with a slight limp as he continues to recover from a serious car accident.
Kayla Lochte/instagram
The following clip shows an athlete holding on to a walker in a hospital setting and walking shakily forward.
Lochte – who had visible scratches on his forehead – then shows a graphic shot of the scar on his leg, which runs from his hip almost to his knee.
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But the video ends on a positive note, showing Lochte running — with a slight limp — down the sidewalk.
“Life’s failures can knock you down, but they set the stage for an even stronger comeback!” read the headline, probably written by Kayla. “This guy puts in the work one step at a time, literally!”
The athlete spoke with host Kyle Mills on his Only athletes podcast just a month after the accident, but as Mills said, they decided “not to release the clip until Ryan is fully recovered and back to 100%.”
“I still have nightmares,” Lochte says in the interview. “I’m still scared when I go to the car for physical therapy. I still have visions of the wreckage. I still have visions of white lights flashing in my eyes.”
Lochte paused, adding emotionally that he struggles with “not knowing that I’m going to wake up and see my family again.”
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The father-of-three said: “In the blink of an eye, your life can be over. I’m so thankful that no one was hurt but me.”
Lochte, who competed in four Olympics with Team USA, explained that he was on his way to pick up his kids from school when “I went down this big four-lane street and this garbage truck was, like, parked in the middle of the street.” no lights or cones to indicate that it has stopped.
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Ryan Lochte has competed for Team USA in four different Olympics.
He explained that “the car in front of me swerved,” but when Lochte tried to avoid the truck, he “crazy ran into the damn thing.”
His friends and fellow parents saw the crash and “tried to come get me,” Lochte said. “They say, ‘He’s dead. He’s not breathing. He would be dead.’ Blood gushes from my head. There are still a couple of stitches in there. I broke my femur. I completely cut my femur in half. Destroyed my car.”
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He says it’s “still hard for me to walk – but I’m doing PT, my health is there, my kids are safe and everyone else in the truck is safe.”
Lochte said the investigator told him that usually in accidents like this, “I have to tell their relatives he’s dead,” adding, “I can’t believe how you did it, but you have a savior.”
“I think I’m a cat with nine lives,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of life I’m living now.”
“It’s a bump in the road — a huge bump in the road,” he said, “But I’ve got to keep moving forward.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education