Daniel Maegerle wanted to be in Atlantic City, N.J., Tuesday night, celebrating his completion of - and perhaps victory in - a grueling 3,000-mile bicycle race across the country.

Instead, the Swiss man was in a St. Louis hospital room with broken ribs, broken bones in his back, damage to his lungs and trauma to his liver after a collision with a truck as he rode his cycle into Alton on Saturday night. One minute, he had been enjoying crossing the Mississippi River and a cooling rain; the next he was waking up at Alton Memorial Hospital.

"At first I was in terrible pain," said Maegerle, an attorney from Winterthur, Switzerland. "I was screaming in pain. I think I woke myself up because of my own screaming."

He knew his back was damaged, he said, but he was relieved to discover he could move his hands and legs.

Maegerle was transferred to the trauma center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. On Thursday, he is scheduled to return to Switzerland aboard a special medical transport. There, he will likely undergo weeks of treatment and rehabilitation before he will be on his feet again.

As for riding? "I haven''t even asked the doctor," Maegerle said.

He had already decided to give up such long-distance cycling after recently finding out his wife of two years, Susanne Witzig, is pregnant with twins. Maegerle said he wanted to go out with a last success. His four-man team was in second place in the coast-to-coast Race Across America when the accident occurred.

"Of course it was a big disappointment," he said of the crash. "It''s not what we wanted, but we''re still happy. I could be paralyzed or dead."

Maegerle''s brother-in-law, Remo Witzig, was in a car with other support staff when the crash happened. All they knew was Maegerle had been hit and it was serious.

"I had to call my sister," Remo Witzig said. "She was crying, I was crying. I was afraid for him losing his life. The relief is very great."

Maegerle''s prognosis is good, largely because of his active lifestyle before he was injured, said Dr. Tim Buchman, director of the trauma center at Barnes-Jewish.