Ryan Lochte, six-time Olympic gold medallist, shares video of recovery from near-fatal car crash

31 August 2024, 10:24 | Updated: 31 August 2024, 14:06

Olympic swimmer and gold medallist Ryan Lochte has shared a video of his recovery from a near-fatal car crash last year.

The 40-year-old athlete said he was in a severe accident last November and has been recovering from a number of injuries - including a broken leg.

Lochte told the Athletes Only podcast in January that police and others who witnessed the incident said he wasn't breathing and thought he had died.

In the clip, posted on Instagram by himself and his wife Kayla Lochte on Thursday, the Olympian was seen in a wheelchair being pushed by his son into a house decorated with Christmas lights.

The video showed him struggling to use a walker in a hospital before cutting to him being seen by a nurse with stitches running from his hip to his knee.

It ended with Lochte running and while he broke into a limp, the caption from Kayla said: "This guy has been putting in the work one step at a time, literally!"

Details of the car accident and Lochte's injury were not included in the post, but the Olympian did explain in January that the incident "took me for a doozy".

Speaking to Kyle Millis on the Athletes Only podcast, Lochte said he was driving to pick up his kids from school in November, and was headed down a four-lane street when the car in front of him swerved to avoid a garbage truck parked in the middle of the road.

Lochte also tried to swerve out of the way but hit the truck. He told the podcast he broke his "femur in half" and that he had blood gushing out of his head.

"Thank God that I only had a broken femur and a couple stitches," he said, before adding one of the investigators told him that in similar accidents they had to tell the victim's relatives they had died.

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Lochte swam and medalled in four consecutive Olympics, with his last appearance coming at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

He has won six golds, three silvers, and three bronzes at the games, but failed to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

(c) Sky News 2024: Ryan Lochte, six-time Olympic gold medallist, shares video of recovery from near-fatal car crash