It's a common misconception among police officers and the public that a person cannot complain about not being able to breathe without breathing, former New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Baden said Tuesday. Baden is one of two coroners hired by the family of George Floyd, the man who died from a police officer's knee to his neck.
"They think if somebody says 'I can't breathe,' it means they're breathing," Baden explained in an interview for Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "I'm talking in run-on sentences right now, but I'm not breathing even though I'm talking."
Like in the Eric Garner case in New York City, in which Garner also died while complaining he couldn't breathe as he was being detained, Floyd said he couldn't breathe because he couldn't inhale, said Baden.
"Officers thought that meant they could breathe because they were talking," he said. "In those situations, enough oxygen didn't get to the brain, so they lost consciousness and died."
Meanwhile, Floyd's autopsy didn't show that he had any significant medical problems that could have caused or contributed to his death, said Baden.
"The video is really the most important thing," said Baden. "The pressure on the back prevents the diaphragms from going up and down, which means he can't inhale and exhale ... but if there is too much pressure on the back, it forces the liver and all the internal abdominal organs up below the diaphragm so it can't move."
Further, even though some drugs showed up in Floyd's initial report, as did some underlying conditions, he died from the compression to his neck, said Baden.
"The family wanted to hire me because the results that came out sort of implied it was something other than what we saw on the video," said Baden. "What we saw on the video was he had compression of the neck, compression primarily, a choke hold, and he died from it."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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