Fear and pain.

Nacer Bouhanni returned to his big fall on the Tour of Turkey on Monday in an interview with the daily

L'Equipe

.

The Arkéa-Samsic runner first recounts this moment, this flash when, launched at more than 50 km/h, he suddenly sees two people in front of him.

“I remember having lowered my head to protect myself and the feeling of having hit a wall.

I didn't have time to put my hand on the brake.

He can't sleep anymore.

"I haven't slept for three nights.

I have this violent image of shock that keeps coming back.

»

Mental pain and physical suffering.

On the ground, Bouhanni immediately puts his hands on the helmet to alleviate the pain and “because [he] had the impression that she could no longer hold on.

I thought of the worst.

»

As an evil never comes alone, help does not go about it in the best way.

“It was horrific.

They took me abruptly to put me on a stretcher.

I kept screaming that I was in terrible pain.

They threw me into the ambulance like a beast.

Everything was abrupt.

There were shaking everywhere during the ride.

I was going crazy.

They asked me to move my head from right to left when I couldn't.

They did not realize that it could be very serious.

»

Forced to "piss in a bottle" in the hospital

There followed hours of waiting at the hospital in shorts, "pissing in a bottle" to compensate for the lack of toilets nearby and with the only wish to return home, find his family and forget this ordeal.

The prognosis of Turkish doctors is not to fix things: risk of paralysis.

Hard.

Back in Paris, the news is much better for the Frenchman.

“When I met the neurosurgeon, it was a bit like the nightmare ended.

I saw him arrive with a coffee in hand and say to me: "You're beautiful, it's going to be fine, you'll soon be back to how you were before."

He added that he had seen what I had exactly, that a C1 vertebra fracture was not nothing, but that I was going to avoid surgery.

Finally, a little light.

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