Nina Dobrev Triumphs Over Tough Recovery, Takes First Steps Without Crutches After Dirt Bike Accident
Nina Kamenova Dobreva, professionally known as Nina Dobrev, is a Canadian actress best recognized for her roles as Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce in the CW’s supernatural drama series The Vampire Diaries.
Nina Dobrev is talking about the “brutal” path to rehabilitation after overcoming a major knee injury sustained in a dirt bike accident three months ago. Now, she can walk without the use of crutches.
Using only a cane, the 35-year-old Vampire Diaries actor announced the news on Instagram on Sunday, July 28, while out and about in Paris at the Ritz Hotel with boyfriend Shaun White.
Dobrev speaks over flimsy video in the latest post, covering everything from her first “baby steps” until the initial accident, all without any help.
“Three months today marks my first and last time on an electric dirt bike,” Dobrev said in the video. “After losing control and crashing the bike — and a not-so-quick hospital visit — I found out that my ACL had completely torn off, my meniscus was torn through and I had a fracture in my tibial plateau. Not ideal.”
The actress then claimed that she was told she would have to wait three weeks for surgery and that the process of having her knee blood-drained by physicians was “excruciating.”
“A lot of people have been asking how I’m doing, so the reason I made this video is to share my progress and my experience,” Dobrev continued. “But I also wanted to show other people that are either going through the same thing or about to go through the same thing that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel if you stick to it.”
“And try to laugh a little in the process,” she added over clips of her giggling with White, 37. “It’s nature’s best medicine.”
The actress continued by saying that, having “never had a big surgery like this before, so it was really scary,” she was “pretty nervous” and “anxious” awaiting the treatment.
But, she continued, “it was a success,” and she was quickly able to return to physical therapy.
“I’m going to be honest with you guys. The knee was so swollen. I was in so much pain. It was the most brutal recovery that I ever could have imagined,” she explained, adding, “If it wasn’t for my friends, and my incredible support system, I don’t know how I would have made it through.”
Elaborating on the “brutal” experience, she said, “There’s obviously the physical pain that comes with surgery and recovery, but what I wasn’t necessarily prepared for was the mental toll that it would take.”
“Not being able to walk, or go to the bathroom by myself or carry a drink was really challenging. I’m a very independent person, so having to rely on other people was really hard for me,” she continued. “This whole experience has tested me physically and mentally but with time, I started making progress. Each day, one step in front of the other, one exercise after the other, one piece of bacon after the other, I got stronger and stronger but it was exhausting at times.”
“It’s crazy how we take very basic things for granted,” she later added.
Once again, Dobrev teased about her injuries in the video’s caption, showcasing her belief that laughing is “nature’s best medicine.”
“Glad I don’t KNEE’D those crutches anymore. They finally got me Christopher WALKen. Okay, dad jokes aside…,” she wrote. “‘Brace yourself’ this is a long video and even longer caption. Last one 😂🫣.”
Also in the caption, Dobrev wrote that her injury was the universe sending her “a message that you don’t really want to hear.”
In her case, she said, “the universe wasn’t not asking… it was telling me to slow down.”