Brooke Arabie• Show poetry

THIBODAUX — A week ago, Central Lafourche High student Brooke Arabie led cheers at a pep rally for incoming freshmen and participated in a volleyball jamboree. It was all in preparation for her upcoming junior year.
Today, the 16-year-old lays flat on her back at University Hospital in New Orleans with a broken vertebra in her neck, broken tailbone, broken pelvis and fractured hip.
She is alert and speaking but faces months of rehab and several instances of surgery before she will be able to walk again, her mother, Dana Arabie, said.
Brooke Arabie suffered the injuries in a wreck Sunday morning in Gheens that killed her friend, 20-year-old Jacob Chaisson of Lockport.
Police suspect Chaisson was driving drunk when his 2003 Buick Rendezvous ran off the Gheens Road around 4:40 a.m.
Both Chaisson and Arabie were thrown out of the car as it flipped in a canefield. Neither Chaisson nor Arabie wore seat belts. Chaisson was pronounced dead at Ochsner St. Anne Hospital in Raceland. Arabie was initially taken to Terrebonne General Medical Center then moved to New Orleans.
Arabie’s mother said she was shocked when she learned of her daughter’s wreck, particularly since she thought her child had gone to sleep at a friend’s house hours earlier.
Instead, by her own admission, Arabie left her friend’s house and met up with Chaisson, her mother said.
“She said ‘No, mama, I’m not going to lie; I snuck out. I thought it would never happen to me,’ ” Arabie’s mother recalled of their talk inside the hospital. Her mother added she would never have allowed her daughter to be alone with Chaisson at that time of night.
Arabie does not yet know that her friend died in the crash. She only knows that he was badly hurt. The reason her family has not told her is because of the severity of her own injuries.
According to her mother, Arabie is determined to keep Chaisson’s memory alive.
“She said ‘If he doesn’t make it, I will be his eyes and ears and make a difference in life,’ ” her mother said.
For now, Arabie’s focus is on what is sure to be a slow and painful recovery. She was scheduled to be on the varsity cheerleader and volleyball teams this fall and was going to throw the javelin for the school’s track squad in the spring.
The best-case scenario now is that she might be able to participate in some sports activities in a year.
But Arabie, according to her mother, is not complaining.
“She’ll tell the story of how lucky she is,” her mother said. “God gave her a second chance.”