Park City, Utah - In a dramatic scene at the Winter Olympics, Lindsey Vonn suffered a serious crash on the downhill, and the whole world heard her cries of pain. Now, for the first time, the athlete is recalling the moment that almost cost her her leg.

After a small skiing misstep, Vonn's arm caught a gate, causing her to fall and roll over, but her skis did not come loose. When she finally came to a stop on the course, her left leg was twisted terribly.

"My leg was broken. My skis were still on. My leg was torqued, and I couldn't get my skis off. I couldn't move, and I was yelling for help," she told Vanity Fair.

But the fall itself was not the worst thing the 41-year-old had to endure. After being taken to the hospital, she had a CT scan of her leg, but the painkillers that had been administered quickly lost their effect.

"Halfway through, I started sweating. I was just in such extreme pain. I screamed at the top of my lungs: Get me out. It just wouldn't dissipate," Vonn recalled.

"It wouldn't let up. It's seared into my brain."

After a stabilizing operation on her leg, the top downhill skier initially seemed to be doing better, but on the first night in the hospital, Vonn suddenly woke up with a hugely swollen leg.

She was suffering from compartment syndrome, where more and more blood runs into the affected part of the body and has no way out.

"I’m sure you’ve seen hot dogs or brats on a grill. They get more and more swollen. Then all of a sudden, they burst. They crack. That's basically what happens with compartment syndrome," Vonn's doctor, Dr. Tom Hackett, explained.

"There was a very significant chance that she was going to lose all function of her leg, if not the leg itself."

Three further operations initially saved Vonn's leg from compartment syndrome, after which the 2010 Olympic champion was finally allowed to be transferred to the US.

After all, she had just had one of the worst experiences of her life in a country whose language she doesn't even speak, and she was only separated from other patients by a curtain when her leg almost had to be amputated.

"It took everything I had for it to not drive me insane," said Vonn.

She is still haunted by what happened, and her daily visits to a hyperbaric chamber, which are supposed to speed up the healing process, are difficult for Vonn because they remind her of the traumatic experience in CT.

But the four-time overall World Cup winner is a fighter, works for hours every single day on her recovery, and won't even rule out a comeback in the future: "I don’t like to close the door on anything, because you just never know what's going to happen."