George Floyd died from oxygen deprivation while held “in a vice” between Derek Chauvin and the street, a leading pulmonary expert told the former police officer’s murder trial.
Dr Martin Tobin, a critical care specialist for 40 years, testified on Thursday that “a healthy person subjected to what Floyd was subjected to would have died.”
Chauvin, 45, a former Minneapolis police officer, faces murder and manslaughter charges after kneeling on Floyd’s neck for than nine minutes last May. The incident was caught on camera, prompting a reckoning on race and policing in America. Chauvin has pleaded not guilty.
After testimony from bystanders, Floyd’s girlfriend and a host of police officers, the court is now hearing from medical experts.
Tobin told the court that “Floyd died from a low level of oxygen and this caused damage to his brain” which caused the 46-year-old man’s heart to stop.
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He added that the position Floyd was held in and the positioning of his handcuffs meant he could barely use one of his lungs and pointed to photographs of the incident showing Floyd pressing his finger into the street and his knuckle onto the police car’s tyre. “He is now literally trying to breathe with his fingers and knuckles,” Tobin said.
The doctor, whose textbook on mechanical ventilation has been described by The Lancet medical journal as “the bible” on the subject, also pointed out that Chauvin’s toe was at one point off the ground, meaning that more than half his body weight was pressing down on Floyd’s neck.
The testimony threatens to upend the defence’s argument that Floyd died from a combination of drug use and pre-existing conditions. Although the post-mortem examination last year listed “neck compression” as the cause of death, fentanyl was found in Floyd’s system.
Under cross-examination by Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lawyer, Tobin acknowledged that even doctors sometimes fail to recognise breathing problems, but said the medical signs in Floyd’s final moments were not consistent with a drug-related death.
The court also heard from Dr Daniel Isenschmid, a forensic toxicologist who tested Floyd’s blood, who testified that the quantity of fentanyl in Floyd’s system was lower than the median level in driving-under-the-influence cases.
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The trial continues.
