Tiger Woods has been spotted for the first time in four months after shattering his right leg in a car crash in California.
“In photographs exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, the golfing legend, 45, was spotted hobbling along on crutches at a Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday. Woods was accompanied by his girlfriend, Erica Herman, who helped her injured beau after they touched down in the city on board a private jet,” wrote the Daily Mail.
In the new photos, Woods was seen wearing a compression stocking on his right leg and sporting a long goatee. “On the tarmac, the sports icon struggled to get into a golf cart which subsequently whisked him to an inside terminal,” the Mail wrote.
The legendary golfer was driving along a windy and steep stretch of road in southern California on Feb. 23 when he crossed the median and two lanes of oncoming traffic before striking a tree and rolling the vehicle over at least once, coming to rest 400 feet away in a ravine.
The 15-time major champion suffered devastating injuries in the one-car accident and underwent surgery to fix the compound fractures in his leg suffered during the rollover.
In March, law enforcement sources reportedly said they believe Woods never hit the brakes before the crash.
” … [I]nvestigators believe Tiger did nothing to prevent the crash once he lost control of the vehicle,” TMZ reported. “Sources with direct knowledge say investigators have looked at various videos … from the hotel where he started the ill-fated drive to various surveillance cameras along the way,” TMZ wrote, adding that “the evidence indicates he accelerated and was speeding when he lost control.”
Earlier reports said there were no skid marks at the site, meaning Woods may not have braked. “The evidence appears to support forensic experts’ earlier theories that Woods, who was on his way to a golf course to film a show with NFL stars, may have fallen asleep at the wheel,” the Daily Mail reported.
Those reports came after the Los Angeles County sheriff said Woods did not receive special treatment. “For anybody suggesting he somehow received any different treatment than anybody else, he did not,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva said, according to USA Today.
But the sheriff said his department needs to hire more Drug Recognition Experts (DRE), a lesson learned as authorities investigated Woods’ crash.
After the crash, law enforcement officials quickly declared it an accident. But in an earlier report in USA Today, some experts questioned that declaration.
“In the early stages of their investigation into why Tiger Woods crashed his car on Feb. 23, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials made critical decisions that were favorable to Woods and effectively gave him the benefit of the doubt, according to forensic experts,” USA Today reported on Monday.
For instance, Villanueva announced that his deputies “did not see any evidence of impairment.”
“The deputy at the scene assessed the condition of Tiger Woods and there was no evidence of any impairment whatsoever,” Villanueva said. “He was lucid, no odor of alcohol, no evidence of any medication, narcotics or anything like that would bring that into question. So that was not a concern at the time.”