(NEXSTAR) – Lindsey Vonn is stable after a frightening crash that caused her to be rescued by helicopter on Sunday, just moments after leaving the starting gate in pursuit of her second Olympic downhill gold medal. The 41-year-old was only seconds into her race in Italy when she clipped a gate with her right shoulder. The collision caused Vonn to pinwheel down the slope, ending on her back with her skis crisscrossed below her. Her screams could be heard ringing out shortly after medical personnel arrived. The crowd far below at the finish line waited for several long minutes as Vonn was tended to. She was eventually strapped to a gurney and flown away by helicopter for the second time in just over a week. She was being “treated by a multidisciplinary team” and “underwent an orthopedic operation to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg,” the Ca’ Foncello hospital said in a statement. The U.S. Ski Team said Vonn was "in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.” “She’ll be OK, but it’s going to be a bit of a process,” Anouk Patty, chief of sport for U.S. Ski and Snowboard, said shortly after. “This sport’s brutal and people need to remember when they’re watching (that) these athletes are throwing themselves down a mountain and going really, really fast.” Vonn was skiing on a rebuilt right knee and a badly injured left knee, and returned to elite ski racing last season after nearly six years. The four-time overall World Cup champion stunned everyone by being a contender almost immediately. She came to the Olympics as the leader in the World Cup downhill standings and was a gold-medal favorite before her crash in Switzerland nine days ago, when she suffered her latest knee injury. In addition to a ruptured ACL, she also had a bone bruise and meniscus damage. She tested out the knee twice in downhill training runs over the past three days before the awful crash on Sunday in clear, sunny conditions. “This would be the best comeback I’ve done so far,” Vonn said before the race. “Definitely the most dramatic.” In Vonn's absence, her teammate Breezy Johnson won the Olympic downhill, becoming just the second American to do so. It was, of course, Vonn who did it first, 16 years ago. The Associated Press contributed to this report.