Mary Lou Retton experiences ‘scary setback’ in pneumonia battle, remains in ICU
After making “remarkable” progress in her fight with a rare form of pneumonia last week, Olympic icon Mary Lou Retton experienced a “scary setback” this week, her daughter announced.
Retton’s daughter, Shayla Kelley Schrepfer, said Wednesday on Instagram that her mom had experienced a setback in the ICU on Tuesday.
“Basically at the beginning of this week, we were going on the up-and-up,” Schrepfer said in a video. “We were so excited, seeing so much progress. Then yesterday we had a pretty scary setback. She is still in ICU and we’re just working through some things as far as her setback goes. I just wanted to give an update there. She had a better day [Wednesday], which is great. [She is] just really, really exhausted.”
Retton, who was the first American woman to win all-around gymnastics gold at the Olympics, was hospitalized earlier this month and has been in the ICU due to a “very rare form of pneumonia.” Her daughters said she was “fighting for her life” and wasn’t able to breathe on her own.
Her daughters have been providing updates on her condition on social media ever since. Schrepfer did not get into specifics about the setback Retton experienced this week. Her family has launched a fundraiser page for Retton, which had raised just more than $450,000 after setting an initial $50,000 goal as of Thursday afternoon.
Retton first won gold at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, which the Soviets boycotted, with a perfect 10 vault. She won silver in the team and vault events, and bronze in the floor exercise and uneven bars. She was the first American woman to ever win the all-around title at the Olympics. An American woman has won all-around gold at the Olympics in the last five Games, most recently with Sunisa Lee in 2020. Retton was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1997.
