Lisa Wilkinson's arm injury was so bad she was 24 hours away from needing amputation.

When television presenter Lisa Wilkinson broke her wrist while holidaying in Italy in July this year, it was put down to bad luck.

“And so ends my beautiful Italian holiday with two badly broken bones after a shocking fall on a wet bathroom floor,” she posted to Instagram alongside a picture of her, with the bravest of faces, sporting a full arm cast.

Turns out, it was more serious than she thought. And, upon returning to Australia, the 57-year-old mum-of-three, former co-host of Today, was told by doctors her arm might require amputation due to ‘mistreatment’ by Italian doctors.

“The doctors [in Italy] were very sweet, but not very talented, and they put a cast on that cut off my circulation for four or five days,” Wilkinson told the crowd at a Business Chicks event on Thursday night, as reported by Daily Mail.

And so ends my beautiful Italian holiday with two badly broken bones after a shocking fall on a wet bathroom floor. For all the ouchy hurty details see my column at @huffpostau or on my twitter feed. ????

A post shared by Lisa Wilkinson (@lisa_wilkinson) on Jul 13, 2017 at 11:30pm PDT

It’s the first time she’s spoken publicly about the injury’s severity, and she said she was in constant pain after the cast was applied.

“When they put the cast on I was so out of it because they aren’t big on painkillers in Italy,” she said. “They manipulated my bones back into position without any pain relief.”

But doctors in Australia couldn’t understand why a full cast was used, and said Wilkinson came within 24 hours of needing amputation, Daily Mail reports.

Wilkinson left Channel Nine’s Today in October due to a pay dispute – i.e. inequality – after it was made public her co-host Karl Stefanovic was earning nearly twice her salary.

She will start at Channel 10, co-hosting The Project, in 2018.