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An aspiring doctor from Louisiana is off life support and recovering a month after a friend pushed him into a lake knowing he couldn’t swim.
Christopher Gilbert was allegedly declared “brain dead” last month and on life support after a woman pushed him into a lake and left him to drown.
Gilbert’s mother said he is responding cognitively but he still can’t speak.
Gilbert was on a dock with a group of women when the incident happened during horseplay at Lake D’Arbonne in Farmerville on April 14.
Cell phone video shows women sitting and standing on the dock and peering into the water. The video doesn’t show the moment Gilbert was shoved into the water or how long he was underwater.
10 minutes later, two people nearby heard the commotion and fished Gilbert out of the water.
Gilbert was supposedly “brain dead” and his internal organs were failing by the time he arrived at a local hospital, his mother, Yolanda George, told KSLA.
“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 master’s 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.
“Why would you push my son in the lake knowing he couldn’t swim?” asked George.
A family attorney told a reporter that Gilbert was under water for “20 minutes” before he was pulled out of the water.
The family wants charges but no charges have been filed.
