- Olympic swimming champion Ryan Lochte says he has spent the past 10 months recovering from a serious car accident that left his “femur broken in half”
- The six-time gold medalist said he was on his way to pick up his children from school when he crashed into a garbage truck
- He said he realized “in the blink of an eye your life is over” and had been working hard to recover since the accident in November.
Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte said he was recovering from serious injuries, including a broken leg, after he was involved in a serious car accident in November.
Lochte, 40, and his wife Kayla, 33, shared a joint video on their Instagram pages on Aug. 28 showing the various stages of the six-time gold medalist’s road to recovery.
The film opens with Lochte in a wheelchair being pushed into his home by his 7-year-old son, Caiden Zane. Georgia June and 5-year-old Liv Rae – playing in the background.
The next video shows the athlete clinging to a walker and staggering forward in the hospital.
Lochte had a visible abrasion on his forehead and then showed pictures of scars on his legs that stretched from his hips almost to his knees.
But the film ends on a positive note, showing Lochte running along a sidewalk with a slight limp.
“Life’s setbacks may break you, but they lay the foundation for your comeback stronger!” said the title, presumably written by Kayla. “This guy puts in the work step by step, really!”
The athlete talks to host Kyle Mills about his Athletes only They released the podcast a month after the accident, but as Mills said, they decided “not to release the segment until Ryan has fully recovered and is back to 100 percent.”
“I still have some nightmares,” Lochte said in the interview. “I still get scared when I drive to physical therapy. I still see the wreckage. I still get white lights flashing in my eyes.
Lochte paused and became emotional, adding that he struggled with “not knowing that I was 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 is over. I’m just thankful no one was hurt but me.
Lochte, who competed in four Olympic Games with the United States, explained that he was on his way to pick up his children from school when “I was driving down this big four-lane street and this garbage truck was parked in the middle of the road.” .
He explained that “the car in front of me swerved,” but while Lochte was trying to avoid the truck, “he hit the damn thing.”
Lochte said his friends and parents saw the accident and “tried to come save me.” “They were like, ‘He’s dead. He’s not breathing. He’s dead. Blood was pouring out of my head. There were a few stitches in there. Broke my femur. My femur was completely broken. Two halves. My car was destroyed.
He shared, “I still have trouble walking, but I’m doing physical therapy, my health is good, my kids are safe, and everyone else in the truck is safe.”
Lochte said investigators told him that usually in an accident like this, “I have to tell their relatives that he died,” adding, “I can’t believe how you do it, but you have a savior .
“I guess I’m a cat with nine lives,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of life I’m living right now.”
“It was a bump in the road — a huge bump in the road,” he said, “but I had to keep going.”