Yolanda George, mother of Christopher Gilbert, calls on police to make arrest after incident in Louisiana in April

The family of a 26-year-old Louisiana man who has brain damage after a friend allegedly pushed him into a lake despite him being unable to swim is calling on authorities to deliver them justice.

Christopher Gilbert’s family’s pleas came after he nearly drowned on 14 April while at a lakefront restaurant by Lake D’Arbonne in the northern Louisiana town of Farmerville.

Speaking to the local news station KSLA, Gilbert’s mother Yolanda George said: “A friend of his called. She was hysterical, crying on the phone. She told me that Chris had [fallen] into the lake, and he had been underwater for 20 minutes or so.”

George said her son – an aspiring medical doctor – was rescued and taken to a nearby hospital. She added: “The doctor called us in and told me that at that time, he was brain-dead, pretty much, and the rest of his organs were starting to fail, and that we had 72 hours on” life support, though Gilbert later regained consciousness and the ability to eat on his own.

  • Drusas@kbin.run
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    8 months ago

    Not every bad decision makes a person a psychopath. You’re diluting the meaning of that word.

    Shoving a friend into a pool or a lake is pretty common young person behavior. Odds are she feels extremely guilty now. That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t face consequences for what she did, but there is no indication that she is a psychopath.

      • Drusas@kbin.run
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        8 months ago

        I agree that everyone should know how to swim. Unfortunately, it’s pretty common for those in poverty to never learn because they have fewer opportunities.

        Odds or this person wasn’t from a background of poverty, considering that he was studying to be a doctor, but it is a common problem in the US.

        • Sizzler@slrpnk.net
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          8 months ago

          Do you not have swimming lessons in school? I hated them, the teacher, the chlorine. I don’t like swimming, but if I needed to, I can. I mean, water makes up how much of the earth’s surface, seems strange to ignore.

            • Sizzler@slrpnk.net
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              8 months ago

              It’s funny cos I think of (areas like ca) that have pools galore in the backyards so it would lead to you to expect schools to have them. Scratch that, it’s not funny.

              • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works
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                8 months ago

                Florida has tons of pools too, and I actually got swimming lessons in elementary school, we had mini field trips for a week walking to a community pool and teaching everyone to, at a minimum, float on their back and tread water.

          • ParabolicMotion@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            This should be mandatory before second grade. Every major city has public pools. How are we not requiring this to be part of every public school’s curriculum? It’s 2024. You know, those finger painting projects were fun, but they aren’t going to save as many lives as swim lessons.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Except for the part where the guy can’t swim, and she shoved him in the water regardless. And didn’t try to rescue him and took 20 minutes to call for help, and the family believes it was malice. These were not children playing, he was 26 years old.

      This is all in the article, and I find it astonishing that people feel a need to defend her, when she basically killed that man, by behaving irresponsibly on 3 counts. there is basically nothing of the original person left.

      • BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        You don’t know she knew he couldn’t swim, you don’t know what happened. Maybe they were both messing around pretending to shove and then it went too far. Young people do stupid things all the time, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not.

        • Drusas@kbin.run
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          8 months ago

          Once again, shoving a friend into water does not make you a psychopath even if you know they can’t swim. It makes you an idiot, for sure. But that’s not psychopathy.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          But we do know, He was 26 years old, so this was not children playing. She pushed him in the water, but didn’t rescue him, and we also know she took a very long time to call for help. So maybe base this on what we know instead of what we don’t know and speculation on what happened.

          1. He was 26, so these were not children playing who didn’t know what they were doing.
          2. She pushes him in the water.
          3. She fails to rescue him. There’s not even anything about an attempt.
          4. She waits a very long time to even call for help.
          5. The family want’s justice, and say “We are saying that it was a criminal intentional push into the lake.””

          So based on that make your own judgement on what kind of person she is.