Ashley Judd posted a video of herself walking on Instagram.- This comes months after she shattered her leg in four places.
- "We expected my foot - if ever - to *begin* to move in one year," she wrote.
Ashley Judd says she can finally walk again nearly six months after shattering her leg in a fall in the Democratic Republic of the
Judd, who shattered her leg in four places and experienced nerve damage after falling in the rainforest in February, gave an update on her recovery on Instagram.
In the post, she said she was able to hike in Swiss National Park in Zernez, Switzerland, over the weekend.
"It is with reverence and quiet awe I offer this update. Today, five months and three weeks after the accident in the Congolese rainforest, I walked again," she wrote. "Stepping in, I felt in my ease, my natural garment of self, at home in my spirit. My leg and foot, worked beautifully. I walked up hill on uneven surfaces for an hour confidently and came down carefully and easily."
Judd continued to thank her doctors and highlighted the speed of her recovery.
She wrote: "We expected my foot - if ever - to *begin* to move in one year. In four months to the day, she blew us all away. Now, after crying while trying to spell the ABCs with a paralysed foot…. well, you see!"
During an interview in February with The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, Judd said she had traveled to Congo to research "highly endangered" bonobo apes. She told Kristof that on the morning of the accident, she journeyed into the rainforest with colleagues around 4:30 a.m. when she tripped over a fallen tree.
Judd said she laid on the rainforest floor with a "badly misshapen leg" for five hours "biting my stick" and "going into shock" from the pain.
"As I was breaking my leg, I knew it was being broken," she said, adding, "What was next was an incredibly harrowing 55 hours."
Judd said she was discovered after a five-hour search and was helped out of the rainforest by six men who carried her in an improvised hammock "for 3 hours over rough terrain" to get her to the next mode of transportation: a motorbike.
She added that during the motorbike ride she had to "physically hold the top part of my shattered tibia together."
Judd shared images of her incredible journey on Instagram earlier this year and thanked her "Congolese brothers and sisters" who helped her out of the rainforest.
"I wake up weeping in gratitude, deeply moved by each person who contributed something life giving and spirit salving during my grueling 55 hour odyssey," she wrote.