Family pastor: Hillcrest pond victim has died

LUBBOCK — The boy pulled from Hillcrest Park's pond on July 4 was removed from a respirator and died Saturday night, according to his family's pastor and a family friend.

Gevion Lewis turned 13 eight days after the accident. He never regained consciousness after being under the water for about 10 minutes.

Shawnita Jones said her son was swimming in the pond with his brother and friends who live near the park when the accident happened.

"They were trying to see who could go the fastest and he got tired and panicked and went down," she said.

First responders were on the scene four minutes after receiving a call for help, officials said, and quickly located him and carried him to a waiting ambulance. His friends tried to rescue him also, but were unable to pull him from the murky water, police reports show.

Bonetta Hutson, the worship leader at Clovis' Living Word Church where Gevion and his family worshiped, said she was with the family on Friday night and prayed with them as they made the decision to remove him from life support.

Hutson said multiple tests had shown no brain activity over several days.

LeAnna Montano, who said she learned of Gevion's passing from his mother on Sunday afternoon, started a gofundme page - https://www.gofundme.com/2qs9hq9g - to help with the family's medical and funeral expenses. It had raised $875 by 9:30 Sunday night.

Community activist Josefita Griego said she's organized a meeting for 5 p.m. Monday at the Clovis-Carver Public Library, also to help raise funds for the family.