Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte has shared that he was in a severe car accident last November and has since been recovering from significant injuries — including a broken leg.
Lochte, 40, and wife Kayla, 33, shared a joint video to their Instagram pages on Aug. 28, showing the six-time gold medalist at various stages on his road to recovery.
The video begins with Lochte being pushed in a wheelchair into his home by son Caiden Zane, 7. A Christmas tree is visible in the corner as his two other 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 severe car accident.
Kayla Lochte/instagram
The next clip shows the athlete gripping onto a walker in a hospital setting taking shaky steps forward.
Lochte — who had visible abrasions on his forehead — then shows a graphic shot of a scar on his leg, which extends from his hip nearly to his knee.
But the video ends on a positive note, showing Lochte running — with a slight limp — down the sidewalk.
“Life’s setbacks may knock you down, but they set the stage for an even stronger comeback!” said the caption, presumably written by Kayla. “This guy has been putting in the work one step at a time, literally!”
The athlete spoke with host Kyle Mills on his Athletes Only podcast just a month after the accident, but as Mills said, they decided “not to release the clip until Ryan was fully recovered and back to 100%.”
“I still have some nightmares,” Lochte says in the interview. “I still get scared when I, like, go to the car to go to my physical therapy. I still have visions of the wreck. I still have visions of white lights flashing in my eyes.”
Lochte paused, getting emotional as he added that he struggled with “not knowing that I’d wake up and see my family again.”
The dad of three said, “In the blink of an eye, your life can be over. I’m just so thankful that no one got injured except me.”
Lochte, who competed in four Olympics with Team USA, explained he was on his way to pick up his children from school when “I was headed down this big four-lane street and this trash truck was, like, parked in the middle of the street” with no lights or cones to indicate that it had stopped.
Ryan Lochte competed for Team USA in four different Olympics.
He explained that “the car in front of me swerved,” but Lochte, when he tried to avoid the truck, “freaking ran into the damn thing.”
His said friends and fellow parents saw the accident and “tried to come get me,” Lochte said. “They’re like, ‘He’s dead. He’s not breathing. He’d dead.’ Blood gushing from my head. Still have a couple stiches in there. Broke my femur. Completely broke my femur in half. Totaled my car.”
He shares that “it’s still hard for me to walk — but I’m doing PT, my health is there, my kids are safe everyone else is safe that was in the truck.”
Lochte shared that the investigator told him that usually in accidents like this, “I have to tell their relatives that he’s dead,” adding, “I can’t believe how you did this, but you have a savior.”
“I guess I’m a cat that has nine lives,” he said. “I don’t know what life I’m on now.”
“It’s a bump in the road — a huge bump in the road,” he said, “But I have to keep moving forward.”
