An aspiring doctor from the United States was left brain dead after his friends pushed him into a Louisiana lake despite knowing he couldn't swim, and then watched helplessly as he drowned, according to a report in the New York Post. A shocking video making the rounds on social media shows the group staring into the lake minutes after they pushed Christopher Gilbert over the dock at Lake D'Arbonne in Farmerville on April 14.
The clip shows a woman entering the lake to look for the man before abandoning the rescue mission. Nearly ten minutes later, a customer from a neighboring restaurant intervened and returned Mr. Gilbert to shore just in time. The 26-year-old was brain dead when he arrived at a local hospital, and his other organs were failing, according to his mother, Yolanda George.
The medical student spent 72 hours on a ventilator and an ECMO machine that the mother said is “dialysis for the lungs.” She said: “I was devastated. I felt like my life had ended at that moment. My son aspires to be a doctor, my son is going to be a doctor. He got his master's degree in biological sciences last year. He is I was preparing for medical school, so when this happened to him… I was devastated.”
According to investigators, his friends initially tried to dismiss the near-death as “horseplay.” The group even lied to the mother after he was rescued. “A friend of his called and she was crying hysterically. She told me Chris had fallen into the lake and he had been underwater for about 10 minutes,” the mother said.
After a while, another woman about Mr. Gilbert's age acknowledged that she had pushed him into the water. However, none of the group's members acknowledged that they knew he could not swim, something Mr. Gilbert's family has found difficult to accept, the outlet said.
“Why would you push my son into the lake knowing he couldn't swim?” asked Mrs. George. Furthermore, the family requests his arrest in connection with the terrible event, citing the friends' criminal intentions to push him into the lake.
The lawyer representing the Gilbert family added: 'To make matters worse, after pushing him, no one from the 'friend group' tried to go after him. Instead, two brave bystanders, who have no relation to Chris, heard a commotion and pulled his body from the lake.”
Although the 26-year-old is responding to treatment, he cannot speak. He is still on life support and his lungs are reportedly at 20 percent capacity.