A 26-year-old man who cannot swim was severely injured after being shoved into a lake in Farmerville, Louisiana, on April 14.
Christopher Gilbert was with a group of friends at Lake D’Arbonne when one of his friends allegedly pushed him into the water, the New York Post reported on Saturday.
The group looked down into the water just after the incident happened and a young woman finally moved to help him. However, ten minutes passed before someone at a nearby restaurant rushed over to pull him out of the water. No one in the friend group admitted knowing Gilbert was unable to swim.
According to KSLA, Gilbert was underwater for those ten minutes. The friends initially told officials he fell into the lake. However, a young woman among the group has reportedly admitted to shoving him into the water.
An image shows the young man wearing his cap and gown while another shows him in the hospital:
The victim’s mother, Yolanda George, said her son was left brain dead and doctors placed him on a ventilator and ECMO machine for 72 hours.
A ventilator is used to pump oxygen into a person’s body, per Web MD. According to the Mayo Clinic’s website, “In extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), blood is pumped outside of your body to a heart-lung machine that removes carbon dioxide and sends oxygen-filled blood back to tissues in the body.”
When speaking of her son’s injuries, George said she 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,” she added.
Gilbert is now recovering from the incident. His family is demanding that law enforcement make an arrest in the case.
In 2019, a teenage girl was sentenced to two days in jail, 38 days of community service, and slapped with $300 in fines for shoving her friend off a 60-foot bridge in Washington state, according to Breitbart News.
The fall caused the victim serious injuries including broken ribs and punctured lungs.
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