An aspiring Black doctor in Louisiana, who nearly drowned last month after a white co-worker shoved him into a lake, has fully recovered and says he harbors no resentment toward the person who nearly caused his death.
“I don’t think anyone did anything intentionally wrong,” Christopher Gilbert told The New York Post about the April 14 incident that left him on life support for three weeks.
The 26-year-old scholar, who last year earned his master’s in biological science from Louisiana Tech University, made a “miraculous” recovery and is now defending his 22-year-old co-worker Cassidy Holland, who pushed him off a dock at Lake D’Arbonne in Farmerville, nearly drowning him.
Initial reports said the man’s pals did nothing to rescue him as he began struggling in the water, leading family attorney Claudia Payne to characterize the incident as intentional and potentially racially motivated.
Now healthy and speaking again, Gilbert emphatically denies these claims, as well as his mother’s assertion that he was brain dead.
“I kind of hate the…[claims about] me being brain-dead, or this attempting for it to be some sort of race issue,” Gilbert told The Post, explaining that such a prognosis would be damaging to his future as a physician.
“Who would want a doctor who has suffered brain damage?” he asked.
Gilbert also refuted Payne’s claims that the family was seeking Holland’s arrest over the incident, telling the outlet, “That’s completely false.”
Gilbert’s attorney, Aaron Lawrence, confirmed that Gilbert had no intention to press charges against Holland or anyone else in relation to the matter, when previously Gilbert’s mother, Yolanda George, claimed the family was planning to file charges after her son was declared brain dead, with his organs on the brink of failure after his pals played a prank that nearly turned fatal.
However, Lawrence described some of George and Payne’s previous statements as “reckless.”
“This has been a prime example of how sharing information without common sense has made an already bad situation so much worse,” Lawrence said.
However, George’s theories about what happened that day might have stemmed from what she was being told by police.
When questioned, Gilbert’s friends initially tried to pass off the incident as “horseplay,” authorities said at the time. But after Gilbert was rescued, his friends were accused of lying to Gilbert’s mother, saying Gilbert had fallen into the lake by accident rather than revealing he had been pushed.
Holland didn’t come forward immediately, but as detectives pressed for more answers, she eventually admitted to shoving Gilbert into the lake.
However, none of the friends admitted to knowing Gilbert could not swim, and authorities took no action.
Then, on April 30, Payne, George’s attorney, held a press conference, saying, “We want the person who has admitted to pushing Chris into the lake, we want her arrested.”
However, police never charged Holland, while Gilbert’s mother continued to assert that Gilbert’s friends showed criminal intent by pushing him into the lake, knowing full well he couldn’t swim.
Payne responded to Gilbert and Lawerence’s comments on Sunday, claiming that Gilbert was preparing to give a statement to authorities, but he switched gears after speaking to his friends.
The attorney also shared a screenshot of a video call, which Payne said was one of her last attorney-client meetings with Gilbert while he was still in the hospital before changing his mind about pressing charges.
“Immediately after that face-time conference and based on what Mr. Gilbert stated and confirmed in that video conference, I reached out to law enforcement to arrange a meeting. The primary intention of this meeting was to share Mr. Gilbert’s statement, now that he was released from the hospital and ready to speak, that we were confident would lead to an arrest,” Payne wrote on her Facebook page.
“Mr. Gilbert has chosen to accept a story given to him by his ‘friends’ and desires to discontinue the pursuit of legal action. While we think it is the wrong decision and that he has been influenced by those who have a conflict of interest, we accept it. I have done nothing that is adverse to what my former client consented, advised, or agreed to. There are text messages, recordings, and other records that support the integrity of my office,” Payne continued.
Holland has insisted that she and others did try to save Gilbert’s life, contrary to earlier reports that said they stood by and did nothing as the man began drowning.
“I would never try to hurt him,” Holland told The Post. “Chris is a beautiful person, my co-worker, and dear friend. . . . I’m so thrilled at his recovery and getting back to normal.”
Two days after leaving the hospital, Gilbert met up with the group for a heartfelt reunion to celebrate his surprisingly fast recovery.
“There was a lot of relief, and I felt like it was very emotional,” he said.
On the day of the incident, Gilbert was at the lake with nearly a dozen friends, having drinks at Rhett’s Tails and Shells, about 90 minutes east of Shreveport, when the group went outside to the dock, and Holland and Gilbert apparently began goofing around.
“I took my keys, wallet, and phone out of my pockets and took my shoes off. I knew Cassidy wanted to push me in for messing with her, so I kind of played into it,” Gilbert told the outlet during a Zoom interview from his home in Ruston, Louisiana.
“I thought maybe the water wouldn’t be as deep, and I would kind of hit the ground, get my footing and shoot up and come back up and grab the pier and just stand there,” he explained.
After a few seconds, however, Gilbert realized he was in trouble.
“And then the water ended up being deeper than we thought and being a lot colder than we thought,” Gilbert said, while acknowledging he is “not the strongest swimmer” and noted, “I misjudged the situation.”
The episode was captured on video, which quickly went viral on social media, showing the group of colleagues sitting casually outside the lake-front restaurant when tragedy struck.
A woman in the group can be seen diving in after Gilbert, but ultimately, she and others panicked and backed off as Gilbert disappeared beneath the water.
In the video, the group appears to take no immediate action as Gilbert flailed and sank.
After several minutes, a customer at the restaurant, identified later as Dawson Foust, noticed the commotion, dove in after the drowning man, and pulled him back to shore.
A police report revealed Gilbert was underwater for “no more than five minutes,” while at least one witness said it was “more like three or four minutes” before he was rescued.
Bystanders revived Gilbert with CPR, and he began breathing again on his own and also had a pulse but still lay motionless on the dock.
Paramedics arrived and rushed Gilbert to a nearby hospital, and he had to be airlifted to LSU Oschner Health in Shreveport, where he was discharged the week of May 5.
By all accounts, Gilbert made a remarkable recovery after he was given a dire prognosis by his mother, George, who spoke with news station KSLA when Gilbert was still in the intensive care unit.
The injured man was hooked up to a ventilator for 72 hours, as well as an oxygenation machine for respiratory support, which allowed Gilbert to heal faster than expected, his nurses said after his release.
A day following the near-death experience, doctors said Gilbert was responding to numerous commands, which made them hopeful that he would make a complete recovery, and three weeks later, Gilbert went home.
He started a GoFundMe this week to help cover his medical expenses and has so far raised nearly $20,000, while his entire bill could run as high as $300,000 after a life flight and three weeks in the ICU.
Now back on his feet, Gilbert intends to resume his bartender job while continuing to study for the MCAT exam next year.
Meanwhile, Gilbert’s mother, George, said she believes that he may be negatively influenced by his friends and their version of the events.
“This is so evil! I don’t know what they’ve done to him or have over him that will make him flip on (Payne),” George wrote.
“We only wanted justice! He wanted justice he told my entire family he wanted Justice! He never remembered anything until he spoke with them! This is beyond crazy but God will prevail.”
