Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte shares video of his recovery after near-fatal fall

Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte and his wife shared a video on Instagram this week showing snippets of his road to recovery from a near-fatal car accident nearly a year ago.

The video, released on Wednesday, begins with a clip showing Lochte, 40, in a wheelchair being pushed into a house decorated for Christmas by a boy who appears to be his son.

A clip is then shown of Lochte in a hospital gown attempting to walk with the help of a walker, followed by a clip of him in a doctor's office showing stitches running almost the entire length of his thigh, from hip to knee.

The final clip shows Lochte limping slightly while jogging through a sunny area.

“Life's setbacks can knock you down, but they set the stage for an even stronger comeback!” read the caption. “This guy literally took it one step at a time!”

The Instagram post did not provide details about the car crash or injury, but Lochte, a 12-time Olympic medalist, appeared on the Athletes Only podcast with host Kyle Millis in January where he discussed it.

Millis explained in a video posted to his YouTube account last month that they decided not to release the portion of the interview in which Lochte discussed the accident until Lochte was “fully recovered and back to 100 percent.”

In the interview, Lochte said the accident, which occurred in November, “hit him hard.” He said he was still having nightmares a month after the accident and was afraid to get in the car to go to physical therapy appointments.

Lochte said in tears that he still had visions of flashing white lights and did not know “if I would wake up and see my family again.”

“But when I wake up now, I'm so grateful,” Lochte said. “In the blink of an eye, your life can be over.”

Lochte said he was driving down a four-lane road to pick up his children from school when the car in front of him had to swerve to avoid a garbage truck parked in the middle of the road.

When Lochte also tried to swerve, he crashed into the garbage truck.

Police officers, investigators, other road users and friends nearby all stopped their activities to come to Lochte's aid, he said, adding that they believed he had stopped breathing and had died.

Lochte said he “broke his femur completely in half” and blood was pouring from cuts on his head. His car – a Ford truck that Lochte affectionately called “a beast” – was totaled.

“Thank God I only had a broken femur and a few stitches,” Lochte said, adding that he still has difficulty walking but is undergoing physical therapy for his injuries.

Lochte said one of the investigators later told him that in similar accidents, he usually had to go to the hospital and either handcuff the victim to the bed because he was drunk or tell the victim's relatives that he had died.

“I guess I'm a cat with nine lives,” Lochte said with a chuckle. “It's a pothole in the road, a huge pothole in the road, but I gotta keep going.”

Lochte swam and won medals at four consecutive Olympic Games, his last appearance being at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.