Amanda Gets Homecoming That Counts

Friday night Amanda Arthur had the homecoming she was really wishing for.

Six days after the 18-year-old was named homecoming queen at Newport Harbor High School, she went home for the first time since a May 23 car crash that killed a classmate and put her in a coma for three months.

“We’re really excited to have her home and have our family intact,” said her mother, Chris Maese. “I know there’s a lot of hard work in store for Amanda. She’s very determined and very motivated.”

Since she awoke from her coma in August, Arthur has repeated like a mantra her wish to go home. And she made it Friday, five months and a day after the crash of a Chevy Blazer, jammed with 10 students, which killed 18-year-old Donald Bridgman and critically injured Arthur.

But her recovery since then has amazed her doctors and reinforced the faith of her friends and family.

“I am so grateful that people heard my plea for them to pray, and that they know God answers prayers,” Maese said. “Because of their prayers, she’s still with us.”

On the way home from Meridien Neuro Care Center in Santa Ana, where she has recuperated since the crash, Arthur and her family stopped at a rehabilitation center in Orange for a session of swimming-pool therapy. Then she donned her cheerleader uniform and met with her teammates at Newport Harbor who were preparing for a football game at Santa Margarita.

When they made it home about 6:30 p.m., there was no fanfare, no throng of family and friends, and her homecoming dinner was a simple turkey sandwich shared with a girlfriend, Sydney Houston.

“There’s been so much excitement, we thought we would just keep it low key,” Maese said. Nevertheless, Arthur is “just ecstatic about being home.”

She wasn’t there half an hour before she was asleep, back in her own bed.

Arthur’s stepfather, Alex Maese, a plumbing contractor, was working through the evening with helpers from the family’s church and other volunteers modifying the house, so Arthur can get around more easily. For starters, they installed handrails in the shower and along the many steps in the three-level home where the family has lived for six years.

“We’re trying to make things so she can be as independent as possible,” Maese said.

Months of arduous physical therapy lie ahead, and Arthur will have to be tutored at home for a while.

“The right side of her body is not functioning properly, and she gets very frustrated with that. And she gets frustrated with not being able to go to school,” Maese said.

But her mom said she just gives a little growl whenever Arthur gets down, and that starts her daughter laughing.

“She’s good at being able to regroup,” Maese said. “If she had alone time I think she’d probably get very depressed. [But] she’s always got somebody around her. They sense that their being there is helpful, and it makes them feel good too.”