Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000 | 12:13 p.m.
Actress and model Lauren Hutton was recuperating Wednesday after undergoing more than seven hours of reconstructive leg surgery for injuries she sustained in a weekend motorcycle crash.
"She still has a lot of recovery ahead of her," said Rick Plummer, a spokesman for University Medical Center, where Hutton was listed in serious, but stable condition Wednesday. "With any surgery it takes awhile to see how it went."
Hutton, 55, suffered multiple fractures in one leg, a broken wrist and several cuts and scrapes in the crash on state Route 167 in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, about 25 miles east of Las Vegas.
Doctors also are monitoring head injuries she suffered in the accident. Plummer could not give specifics of what type of head trauma Hutton sustained.
"It's what you imagine would happen anytime someone flew several hundred feet in a crash," Plummer said.
The National Park Service, which is investigating the accident, said the crash occurred just after noon Saturday when Hutton's motorcycle "left the road on the right-hand side and appeared to travel several hundred feet before stopping."
What caused Hutton to lose control of the motorcycle remains unknown.
Investigators are trying to sort out what happened. A formal report on the accident is not expected until early next week, Park Service spokesman Bert Byers said.
There are no indications that speed, road conditions or alcohol were factors in the crash, Byers said.
Hutton was wearing a helmet and protective leathers at the time of the crash. Emergency medical technicians traveling with the group administered first aid before a helicopter flew her to the hospital.
Hutton, actors Dennis Hopper and Jeremy Irons and about 50 other celebrity members of the Guggenheim Motorcycle Club were riding along the north side of Lake Mead just west of Echo Bay as part of a planned 100-mile trip across southern Nevada.
The ride was organized in connection with Friday's announcement that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation will partner with the State Hermitage Museum of Russia as joint tenants in a museum being constructed near The Venetian.
The museum is scheduled to open in the spring with "The Art of the Motorcycle," an exhibit put together by the Guggenheim that features more than 120 early- to late-model motorcycles.
The motorcycle club was borne out of the success of the exhibit, which made its debut two years ago in New York.
Hutton, a longtime motorcycle rider, was dubbed the first supermodel by some after appearing on the cover of Vogue a record 25 times in the 1960s and 1970s.
Since she began acting in 1968, she has appeared in more than 50 films.
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