The family of a promising young medical student demands to know why no one has been arrested for pushing him into a lake and nearly drowning.
Video filmed at the scene showed the group of friends casually gazing into the water as Christopher Gilbert, 26, who did not know how to swim, struggled for up to 20 minutes to save himself in the lake in Farmerville, Louisiana.
His heart and breathing had stopped when customers at a nearby restaurant saw what was happening, dragged him to the surface and began CPR.
The group of friends told police he “just fell face first into the water” before one admitted she had pushed him off the dock.
“In the legal field we characterize things as we see fit,” says the family’s lawyer Claudia Payne. ‘Of course, they are talking nonsense. “We are saying it was an intentional and criminal push into the lake.”
Christopher Gilbert, 26, had graduated with a master’s degree from Louisiana State University.
Video of the incident shows Gilbert’s friends casually looking at the water as he struggled for up to 20 minutes to save himself in the lake in Farmerville, Louisiana.
His heart and breathing had stopped when a spectator pulled him 15 feet out of the water.
Gilbert’s mother, Yolanda George, said she was alerted when one of the friends called her at home.
“She told me that Chris had fallen into the lake and had been underwater for about 20 minutes,” George told Fox8.
‘And I was like, 20 minutes? Why was she underwater for 20 minutes?
And she was crying hysterically and they were flying him to Shreveport.
“And initially, when my son got there, the doctor called us and told me that at that point he was “practically brain dead and the rest of his organs were starting to fail.”
George ran downtown where he found his son clinging to life.
“I was devastated, I felt like my life was over in a moment,” she said. ‘My son aspires to be a doctor; He earned his master’s degree last year. My son is so sweet, the most selfless being you’ll ever meet, that I was in a terrible state.’
Outside he found some members of the group in the hospital waiting room.
The young scientist from Shreveport planned to enroll in medical school to become a doctor.
His father and grandfather watched with pride as he qualified at LSU.
Three weeks later, he remains on life support at Ochsner LSU Health
Mother Yolanda (center) and attorney Claudia Payne (right) told KSLA they want justice.
“The group of friends came to the hospital still telling me the same made-up story that he had fallen,” he said.
“I found out at that moment in the ER that the sheriff called me,” he said, adding that once they met they asked him if he knew what had happened.
She told him: ‘Yes, he was in the lake and he fell.’
But he said, “No, one of the girls pushed him.”
‘I was like “who pushed him?” And I started looking around the room, “which one of you pushed him?”
“The young woman said, ‘Yes, I did,’ and I said, ‘Why would you push my son into the lake knowing he couldn’t swim?’
“She said, ‘Well, ma’am, I didn’t know that man couldn’t swim.’
The concerned mother then asked who the girl meant by “that man,” but soon understood that she meant Chris.
She continued: ‘Everyone knows he can’t swim. He jokes about not being able to swim, even when we went to the restaurant the owner of the restaurant said everyone knew that Chris can’t swim, he’s been coming here for two years and he’s always joking about it.
The video shows that at one point a woman in a black bikini followed Gilbert into the water but did not return to the drowning man.
Sergeant Ashley Rhodes of the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office arrived at the lake and found restaurant customer Dawson Foust desperately trying to save Gilbert’s life.
In his incident report he noted his conversation with the group of friends.
“They told them they thought I was playing a prank on them by not showing up right away,” he wrote.
‘Some members of the group did not realize that Gilbert did not know how to swim.
“It was later discovered that the group was playing horses and one of the women in the group pushed Gilbert into the water, not knowing that he did not know how to swim.
“Foust informed me that it was approximately 15 feet deep where he found Gilbert.”
Union Sheriff Dusty Gates gave a different account when interviewed about the April 14 incident.
“The party I was with began to panic or scream and an individual inside the restaurant saw what was happening and came out, lunged and retrieved the victim,” he said.
“We don’t know if he can get worse again because at one point they took him off the ventilator, but two days later they put him back on it,” his mother said.
“It was a concerted effort by a lot of people to make this happen, and that’s what we’re trying to work on here in Union Parish, working together to make it a better place.”
Gilbert remains on life support in hospital as doctors try to establish whether he will ever recover.
“It’s still a battle because we don’t know what to expect,” his mother said.
“We don’t know if it can get worse again because at one point they disconnected the respirator, but two days later they connected it again.”