when i was in hospital with my ankle surgery (only 2 pieces, one big and a very small one, so nothing bad), another older (like ~40) guy received his diagnostics: the doc told him that his bone )(the one "under" the shinbone) practically shattered into pieces. he compared it to a broken window, to the crumbs of a bread.
with those analogies he tried to tell him that its pretty much impossible to rebuild it. there are pieces everywhere in the ankle, mixed with blood, nerves, muscles and ligaments. there was no way to fix it without causing more damage (that was in his case, dunno about the OP). he needed a cast for 5/6 months and afterwards they would look again if a surgery is possible or not. they just hoped that the body fixes it himself (or at least so that he can use the foot 70-80%)
BOTTOM LINE: in some cases, the damage is too big to be fixed by a simple surgery, so you might just wait and see