Aspiring doctor brain dead after friends pushed him into lake knowing he can’t swim
A would-be medical student was left brain dead last month when his friends pushed him into a Louisiana lake despite knowing he couldn’t swim, and then watched without taking any action to save him, as per a report.
A video that shocks shows the group casually looking into the water shortly after they pushed Christopher Gilbert off the dock at Lake D’Arbonne in Farmerville on April 14.
At least one woman can be observed slowly going into the water before abandoning the rescue effort.
It was only after 10 minutes that a customer at a nearby restaurant stepped in and pulled Gilbert back to safety — just in time. The 26-year-old was brain dead and his other organs were starting to fail when he reached a local hospital, according to his mother, Yolanda George.
He spent 72 hours on a ventilator and an ECMO machine, which George described as “dialysis for the lungs.”
“I was devastated. I felt like my life had ended in that moment. My son is aspiring to be a medical doctor, my son is going to be a medical doctor. He got his masters last year in biological science. He’s preparing for medical school so for this to have happened to him … I was just devastated,” George said.
According to police, his friends initially tried to pass off the near-death incident as “horseplay.” They even told the lie to George right after he was rescued: “A friend of his called and she was hysterical crying. She told me that Chris has fell into the lake and he had been underwater for 10 minutes or so,” the mother said.
Eventually, a white female around the same age as Gilbert admitted to pushing him into the lake.
None of the friends, however, admitted to knowing he couldn’t swim — a claim Gilbert’s family finds hard to believe. “To add insult to injury, after pushing him, no one from the ‘friend group’ attempted to go in after him.
Instead, two brave bystanders, who have no relationship to Chris, heard commotion and retrieved his body from the lake,” personal injury attorney Claudia Payne, representing George, wrote in a report.
Thankfully, Gilbert has made progress since the brutal incident.
He is responding cognitively but cannot speak, according to George. He still relies on life support, and his lungs are at 20% capacity.
The family is also demanding an arrest be made in the tragic incident, with Payne saying the friends showed criminal intent by pushing him into the lake.
“Why would you push my son into the lake knowing he couldn’t swim?” asked George.
