Tiger Woods Spotted on Crutches as He Returns to LA 4 Months After Accident

Tiger Woods is still on the mend following a February car crash that left him hospitalized for several weeks. Four months after the professional golfer suffered serious injuries in the crash, including a shattered right leg, he was spotted mobile with the help of some crutches when he returned to Los Angeles on Monday.

Woods’ private et touched down Los Angeles International Airport on Monday, with video obtained by TMZ, which you can view by clicking here, showing the moment the golfer deplaned the jet with a little help from his girlfriend, Erica Herman. Woods, 45, was spotted getting around with the help of crutches and was also sporting a black compression sleeve on his right leg. As he and Herman made their way from the plane, Woods walked without assistance from anybody else and was even seen putting a little pressure on his still-healing leg, though he understandably still had a noticeable limp. The Daily Mail reports that after deplaning, Woods and Herman left the airport in a black SUV. Somebody opened the door to the vehicle for the golfer, and Herman took the driver’s seat.

The public sighting came just four months after the horrific accident in the Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes area of California. On the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 23, the Genesis SUV Woods was driving crossed over a raised median and into two oncoming lanes. The vehicle hit a curb and a tree before rolling over several times. According to a police report, the crash was the result of Woods traveling “between 84 and 87 mph” in a 45 mph zone. Responding emergency personnel had to use an ax to smash the car’s windshield and extract Woods, who was then taken to an area hospital after he suffered “significant” injuries in the crash. It was later revealed that Woods “suffered significant orthopedic injuries to his lower extremity,” with a police report detailing a “laceration to the lower front jaw, bruised right and left rib cage” and “open fracture, mid shaft on his right leg, below knee.” He was immediately taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center before later being transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

After being released from the hospital on March 16, Woods shared the first photo of himself post-crash on Instagram in May, quipping that his “course is coming along faster than I am.” At the time, the golfer had a medical boot on his right leg. Opening up about the crash and his recovery later that month, Woods told Golf Digest, “this has been an entirely different animal,” adding that while he has suffered injuries in the past, “this was more painful than anything I have ever experienced.” Woods said he was taking his recovery “one step at a time” and was “focused on my No. 1 goal right now: walking on my own.”