The sound of the impact still haunts elite Irish national road race champion Imogen Cotter.
There was the bang and the next thing she remembers is waking up and being overcome with the emotion of not being dead.
"I’m alive, I’m alive!" she cried at an American ex-pat who was, miraculously, on the same stretch of secluded Catalan country lane when the head-on collision with a white Fiat Doblo van happened on 26 January.
But the bang stays with her. "I hate it," she said, snarling, before breaking down for the first of several times during our two-hour interview.
The physical pain she can take - for the most part. It's the mental toll that sometimes hurts more. "I hate it," she repeated, addressing it like something ever-present, living and breathing in her space.
They say those who come close to dying have unbelievable clarity in the moments leading up to a near-death experience.
The 26-year-old from Ruan, Co. Clare describes hers thus.
"It was a Wednesday, a bit like today, cloudy and overcast and I just had two hours easy scheduled on the bike.
"I had moved house that morning, which was a big feckin' effort, and I was planning to go out training at 11 or 12."
Cotter is a professional cyclist, one of the very few Ireland has ever produced. She earns a living from a salary paid by her Belgian-registered team Plantur-Pura, a small squad made up of mainly German, Belgian and Dutch riders.
It's not a big salary by any means - not compared to what professional men make, but she can get by on it, and she's cool with that.
This was going to be a big year for her. A new home, a new team, new friends and new opportunities were just some of the things she was looking forward to in her adopted city of Girona in Spain’s north-east corner.
It’s a pocket where many professional athletes have called home in recent years as it offers excellent roads for training - with long climbs and little traffic - a favourable climate and a cheaper cost of living than Ireland.
"I remember I got to the new apartment and I stood at the window looking out…and I remember thinking about all the decisions I made (to be here).
"I was where I wanted to be. I left my old relationship behind, I moved here, I felt independent and I felt really good about myself…just really content, you know?"
"I sent a video to my family saying 'OMG I can't believe I'm living here, this is amazing’. And then I put my kit on and headed out by myself."
She headed south out of town and remembers looking down at her computer. The numbers confirmed what her body was telling her. "I’m f***ing flying…I was pinging," she smiled.
Low heart rate, high power. Perfect. The Holy Grail for pro cyclists approaching the season.
Happiness watts is another highly unscientific term used by sports doctors and physiologists to describe an elevated sense of well being, self-worth and low stress. It is said that more pain can be tolerated while in that state. Which was just as well.
"I did some testing that week and my numbers were incredible," she said in reference to her power output, which is measured in watts.
She was going so well, in fact, that she realised she’d be back in Girona well before the two prescribed hours. So she bolted on some extra kilometres to keep her coach happy.
That decision is one she still struggles to come to terms with.
I thought 'damn he is cutting it really fine. He will miss me if he pulls in'
"So he's coming along here and I'm coming the other way," she points on her iPhone, describing in horrific detail what it feels like to be hit head-on by a car traveling in the opposite direction.
With her left little finger, she traces a bend that sweeps around to her left. Cotter on the right side of the road, oncoming van on the left, oncoming cyclist being overtaken.
Next came the collision.
"Oh man, the slap. I hate it. That is one thing I wish I could forget…my God…straight on, head on…
"He overtakes the guy here and I get hit around here…my body lands here..I saw the car (Van), you don’t have the time to think ‘I am about to die’…I saw the car and I remember the noise of hitting it."
Looking at the mangled wreck of a vehicle he was driving, it’s hard to believe someone could survive, let alone walk again, such is the damage to it.
"I flew up into the air, came down and hit this with my head," now pointing to the smashed windscreen, her voice breaking again.
"…if I had hit that steel frame around the window I would be dead…that is 2-3 inches away. I would have hit that and I would be dead, or at least have life-altering injuries."
Bruce, the aforementioned American living in Girona for 10 years, had a full view of it.
"He still cries about it."
Bruce called his wife Faith - a nurse - who just repeated down the phone, ‘just hold her hand, stay with her’.
With broken bones, blood pouring from her knee which was "open like a flower", and shaking violently, it was a long 40 minutes before the ambulance finally arrived, having initially gone to the wrong place.
2022. Over before it began.
Cotter, who only started cycling three years ago, realised a dream in Wicklow last October when she became the national champion for the first time.
Her goals for 2022 were to get established in the professional peloton, step up to the top level of the sport known as the World Tour, and represent Ireland wherever an opportunity arose.
The European and World Championships were marked in her calendar as key targets.
That has all changed, as her focus has become a lot more immediate and less long-term, or "winning the day" as she says.
The (physical) injuries were modest enough; fractures to the right patella (kneecap), left and right arms as well as a tendon rupture. Miraculously, there was no internal damage. That’s not to suggest the road ahead is going to be smooth.
A six-hour emergency knee surgery in the traumatology ward of Girona’s Trueta Hospital was the most concerning initial procedure, and it went very well.
"Of course the athlete in me came out straight away. I was so impatient I was like ‘bring me to the next place…bring me to the next place…where are we going next?
"I’m honestly feeling like I got away too lightly, and I feel guilty about that.
"I have followed girls on social media who have crashed in training and spent years recovering. Some never have."
She had a major victory recently when an MRI scan revealed no lasting damage is likely.
"It was really good… sorry," as more tears arrived.
"When they went through the MRI they told me ‘everything is normal’. I have tendinitis which is why I can’t bend my knee properly, but that goes down. Tendinitis!
"The femur is really inflamed but my cartilage is almost normal. I couldn't believe it.
"I didn't really know what was going on inside my knee and it was a really big source of anxiety, not so much 'Will I cycle again?', but more 'Will I ever walk properly again?' and I was really, really nervous. It was a horrible worry all the time.
"I was initially told by a traumatologist that I had no cartilage in my knee and I would have a lot of pain going forward. I was panicked…I was thinking I might never run again, I might never be able to run around the garden with my kids (she has none, but plans to one day) or go for a jog on the beach with my sisters…all these things I was thinking I’d lost, but I don't."
Despite that, there’s still a very long road ahead for the 28-year-old. She's positive she’ll make a full recovery but is realistic enough to know 2022 could be a write-off.
Her weeks are jammed juggling physio, doctor, pool and lawyer appointments and she isn’t sure which of those she hates more, not least because she has to pay for them all.
A GoFundMe page was set up by her housemate - unbeknownst to Cotter - and within a few days had generated over €25,000 to help allay the cost of her spiralling medical and solicitor fees. The page also attracted its share of negative commentary and was closed down after two weeks.
"At the moment I am paying for every visit. I cannot access those funds yet. Obviously I am super appreciative to everyone who contributed, but I felt it was a bit…" she trails off.
Disingenuous was the word she was looking for.
"People have given so much, I don't need any more, really."
Some good has come from her miserable start to the year; sisters Muireann and Phoebe came back from Vancouver and London and they all met up in Ireland recently, much to the delight of parents Fintan and Grainne.
"I don’t consider this a s**t time, I am still in the place I want to be, I am recovering at a great pace. There is no self pity or 'why me?', just perspective. Flick on the news. That’s misery," she says in reference to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
"What is happening is happening for me, not to me. A brilliant thing will come from this. Already brilliant things have happened.
"The cycling community, they really band together in hard times, especially in a small cycling bubble like Girona. Everyone has heard about it. Locals were a little embarrassed about it and everyone went above and beyond, and it was so kind. That is really helping me to be positive.
"For me, I’m not putting pressure on myself but I still have huge goals for cycling. I have big things I want to achieve and now that I know I will recover from this I don’t see why I should forget them.
"Maybe they will be put on a longer timeline but there is no reason I cannot aim for lofty goals.
"If I don’t get to wear the Irish champs jersey in a race this year, I’ll just have to come back and win it again next year."
And few would bet against her doing just that.
