FERNDALE - A Ferndale woman was charged this week with stabbing a rival girlfriend in the chest with a folding knife.

Prosecutors allege a friend agreed to drive Carrie Marie Brooks, 43, to a home in the 700 block of East Axton Road on Dec. 17, so Brooks could drop off her boyfriend's dog, according to an affidavit filed in Whatcom County Superior Court.

Earlier reports inaccurately stated the date and location of the incident.

The boyfriend was working on a car in the driveway. He and Brooks got into an argument about a 34-year-old woman he was living with. At the time, that woman was doing laundry inside.

Brooks and the man walked toward the house and kept arguing in the doorway. The other woman clutched a bread knife and a soda in her hands; Brooks had something in her hand, too.

Prosecutors believe Brooks lunged at the woman. The woman threw the drink in Brooks' face, then dropped the knife so she could push Brooks away, according to her story.

"The next thing I knew," the woman later told investigators, "I thought she was hitting me, but I was getting stabbed."

Brooks walked outside "without remark," according to the charges. Then she told her friend, the driver, that she stabbed the woman in self-defense. Still, the driver claimed in an interview with detectives, she felt "something wasn't right" as they drove off. Brooks allegedly wiped down the 4- to 5-inch blade of the knife with her sweater sleeve and tossed it out the window.

The boyfriend, a felon, fled the scene after getting a friend to help the injured woman. (Drug paraphernalia and guns were found in the home, according to the charges.) Detectives later caught up with him, and he confirmed parts of the story.

The victim recovered from wounds to her chest and right hand. She spoke with investigators in late January.

Brooks was arrested last week in the bathroom of a Bellingham bar. She's charged with first-degree assault and was still in Whatcom County Jail Wednesday on $100,000 bail.

Reach Caleb Hutton at 360-715-2276 or caleb.hutton@bellinghamherald.com. Read his dispatcher blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/dispatcher or follow him on Twitter at @bhamcrime.