Recovery mode gets stuck on "Google" logo - won't power on

After it died, I fully charged my Nexus and turned on to find it stuck on the "Google" logo during startup. I don't remember a fatal drop prior to this.

I held "power" and "volume down" buttons to access the menu (with Andoid on it's back) with options Start, Restart Bootloader, Recovery Mode, and Power Off. I tried Recovery Mode, and the first few times it made it past the Google screen to the image of the Android with a red triangle, but by the time I figured out what the next step was I couldn't get that red triangle screen to come up again.

I did also try "Restart Bootloader" once, I don't know if this could have caused anything bad. Now when I try "Recovery Mode" it just stays on the Google screen for hours - I even left it overnight. While on the Google screen, it only responds to the power button being held long enough to turn it off.

At this point, I'm ready to do a hard reset just to get the device to turn on again. I have researched this issue for a while but haven't found any straightforward solution. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.