CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The decision to treat U.S. ski great Lindsey Vonn in Treviso, a northeastern Italian city of just over 85,000 people, surprised many who believed her team would choose a private clinic in Milan or Austria after her crash in Sunday’s Olympic downhill.
Treviso, about 130 km from Cortina, is one of the seven most important cities in the Veneto Region, one of Italy’s most renowned areas for healthcare, where many people from the south of the country travel to receive different types of treatment.
The 41-year-old Vonn’s audacious bid to win gold at the Milano Cortina Games with a ruptured knee ligament ended in a horrific crash after 13 seconds of Sunday’s race at the Olimpia delle Tofane course in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Vonn, who said in an Instagram message on Monday that she had suffered a complex tibial fracture – had two surgical procedures in Treviso, one to stabilise the fracture and another to prevent complications linked to swelling and blood flow, a source close to the matter said.
After initial assessments at the Codivilla Hospital in Cortina, the U.S. team chose to transfer her to the only hospital in Treviso, also considering other facilities such as Milan and Innsbruck in Austria, the source added.
The Ca’ Foncello hospital is one of the two Olympic hospitals along with Milan’s Niguarda. It is close to Cortina and is equipped with a state-of-the-art neurosurgery unit.
In this department – which has 28 beds and 10 dedicated intensive-care beds – doctors perform around 1,500–1,600 operations a year for brain and nervous system diseases and trauma.
At Ca’ Foncello Hospital – whose origins date back to the 13th century – neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists, orthopedists, physiatrists and physiotherapists work side by side on each case, the hospital said in a statement on Tuesday.
“It is like an orchestra where each musician is a top-level soloist, but it is the harmony of the group that produces the best result for the patient,” it added.
(Reporting by Sara Rossi; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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