"I was really determined to do this. I believe there's always a way to do something," said the effusive senior, lean and toned from punishing year-round workouts, before a recent practice at St. Joe's boathouse.
Rowing attracts a certain kind of spirit, someone committed more to strength and endurance than flashy moves. That brio helped Armstrong reclaim her dream of competing for St. Joe's, which had recruited her for its team.
Throughout her ordeal, the school never gave up on her - even when rowing seemed out of the question.
When she finally got to school in the spring of freshman year, coach Gerry Quinlan made her coxswain even though the 5-foot-7 athlete was about 7 inches and 25 pounds too big for the job.
And when she told him the next year that she was ready to row, he didn't hesitate to take her back "as long as she was willing to work hard," he said.
"She's never slowed us down."
It took that kind of grit to recover from the crash, which happened near her home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, the summer before her freshman year. She was driving to a 6 a.m. practice at her rowing club when she lost control of her mother's Audi station wagon.
The car was crushed except for a small cubbyhole where Armstrong was found. When police called her parents they told them she was alive "at the moment," recalled her mother, Leslie. "That sets a bit of panic in you."
On the way to the hospital, they passed the crumpled car, still wrapped around the tree.
"Luckily my husband is the cool, calm and collected one and he was driving," she said.
Armstrong underwent three operations, two of them to remove the crushed bone and insert a titanium cage and rods in her back.
Her recovery was never certain.
"The first 36 to 48 hours or so they were really uncertain if I was going to live," she said.
