Justin Bieber's night of drinking and drag racing in Miami ended in charges of drunken driving and resisting arrest.
As Sabrina Cohen knows all too well, it could have been much, much worse.
In 1992 Cohen, then 14, hopped into the backseat of her friend's car on Miami Beach. She thought she was going to a party, but the driver had other plans. He started drag racing on Alton Road and crashed into a tree around Alton and 58th Street. While the other passengers sustained minor injuries, the impact of the crash shattered Cohen's spine and paralyzed her legs.
"I understand the consequences of what comes with having too much fun," Cohen, 36, tells ThePostGame, "Or just thinking you can do anything."
Bieber was arrested early Thursday morning at Pine Tree Drive and 27th Street. That's just minutes from the spot where Cohen's accident took place on Halloween in 1992. It's one of the city's prettiest streets, but also one of the most curvaceous.
"You could take your car for a little bit more of a ride as opposed to just driving straight," Cohen says about Pine Tree Drive, which becomes Alton Road.
In the wake of Bieber's arrest, Cohen says it's easy to ignore the story or blame the incident on Bieber's youth. But Cohen says Bieber's troubles should serve as a lesson. Often teenagers know the right decision in their gut but are pressured to do something else by friends or society, she says. Cohen, for example, wasn't wearing a seat belt when she hopped in that car because she didn't want to seem out of place.
Teenagers should be trusted to make the correct call, Cohen believes, because they have the capability to make proper judgements in situations like these.
"If they're in a bad situation or feeling pressure, [I'd say] to just trust themselves and be concerned with their own safety rather than looking good around other people," she says.
Cohen has traveled across the country educating young people on the dangers of reckless driving. She's also started the Sabrina Cohen Foundation For Stem Cell Research, which has raised $150,000 to date.
Cohen's newest project is a rehab and fitness center in Miami Beach that caters to people who are suffering from medical conditions. She hopes it will allow disabled men and women to get involved in sports and other physical activities.
"We might do it a little differently," Cohen says, "But that doesn’t mean we have to be secluded from it."
Obviously there are several key distinctions between Bieber's incident and other drag racing stories -- Bieber is a global sensation, he was reportedly drinking and this is far from his first offense. Still, Cohen says this is an issue that shouldn't be ignored.
"The truth is teenagers of all ages and all income levels have access to driving and partying and going out," Cohen says. "Unfortunately it's until something happens that other people take the issue seriously."
To learn more about Sabrina Cohen or her foundation, see here.
