- Brooke Shields revealed that she broke her femur in a balance board accident in January.
- In a new interview, she opened up about what caused the injury and her recovery.
- The actress is learning how to walk again after multiple surgeries on her femur.
Brooke Shields, 55, revealed in late February on Instagram that she was recovering after breaking her femur. The actress didn’t offer up many details at the time, but now, Brooke is sharing what caused her injury and the intense aftermath.
The model told People in a new interview that she had an accident at a New York City gym in January. The Suddenly Susan alum fell off a balance board, flew into the air, and landed so hard that she broke her right femur. “It felt like it was all in slow motion,” she said. “And then I just started screaming… Sounds came out that I’ve never heard before.”
An ambulance arrived, and Brooke said she was scared because she couldn’t feel her toes. “I was so afraid I was paralyzed,” she recalled. The Blue Lagoon star originally had surgery to insert two metal rods, but needed a second surgery to add five more rods and a metal plate to anchor her leg in place after the broken part of her right femur popped out.
Now, she’s doing physical therapy to try to heal. “I realized with a certain calm that the rest is up to me now,” the Jane The Virgin alum said.
Brooke was in the hospital for two and a half weeks, and she developed a serious staph infection after she went home. That landed her back in the hospital for emergency surgery on the spot where she had three blood transfusions.
Doctors worried at first that Brooke might have MRSA, a type of bacteria that’s resistant to antibiotics. “Thank God it wasn’t,” the Mr. Pickles actress said. “If it had been, my doctor said it would have been a race against time. That’s how you can become septic. It seemed unthinkable.”
When Brooke went home a second time, she asked to do twice-a-day physical therapy workouts. “For the first time in my entire life, I thought, ‘I can’t power through this,’ ” she said. “I can’t even stand on my leg or go up a step. I need to relearn how to even walk. The feeling of helplessness is shocking.”
Now, Brooke is working hard to try to heal. “I’m the only one that’s going to be able to get through this,” she said. “My career has actually been like that as well. One door gets slammed in my face, and I search for another. It’s not unlike how I felt when I wrote about postpartum depression in 2005. This is my journey, and if it took me breaking the largest bone in my body, then recovery is something I want to share. We have to believe in ourselves and encourage one another. There’s no other way to get through life, period.”
It’s unclear exactly where The Middle alum is on the road to recovery, but the video Brooke shared on Instagram in February featured her slowly walking with the help of a crutch.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLkmxmXnCsR/
A post shared by Brooke Shields (@brookeshields)
In early March, she shared another video of herself walking up a set of stairs with the help of a doctor, crutch, and handrail.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMDLZLKHVl6/
A post shared by Brooke Shields (@brookeshields)
Brooke told People that she’s working hard to recover: “I’m a fighter.”
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