The doctor who had been in charge of resuscitating George Floyd before he passed away gives insight as to his cause of death: he testifies to the court that he most likely died due to asphyxiation.
Dr. Bradford Langenfield, medic at Hennepin County Medical Center, made his appearance on the second week of Chauvin’s trial.
The doctor was under cross examination from prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, yet doctors retaliate and state that Floyd died because he didn’t get enough oxygen. Langenfeld states, “Any amount of time that a patient spends in cardiac arrest without CPR markedly decreases the chances of surviving,” confirming that there was no report of CPR being given to Floyd before paramedics arrived.
The testimony from Dr. Langenfeld reveals that Floyd’s cardiac arrests comes from the lack of oxygen he was receiving, and when he came to the hospital, he was already proclaimed dead 30 minutes upon arrival.
Although teary, the doctor continues and says that the “likelihood of any meaningful outcome was far below 1 percent.”
Derek Chauvin, former Minneapolis police officer, is convicted of charges with murder and manslaughter by kneeing the victim for nine minutes and 29 seconds. His defense is that he was trained to do that, hence the outcome.
Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, focused on the possible drug overdose of Floyd, saying there was fentanyl in his system that lead to his death, and not Chauvin’s actions. He asked if some drugs can cause a lack of oxygen, and the doctor acknowledged the drug can indeed do that.
The doctor was unaware of Floyd’s drug abuse, and that the information would have considered drugs as a possible part of the condition that he was in. Still, there is redirect by Blackwell Dr Lagnefield and clarified that once a person is under cardiac arrest, the impact of fentanyl antidotes would have none at all in Floyd’s case.
Nelson argues “As the court is aware this is a totality of the circumstances analysis based on what a reasonable officer would do under similar circumstances… There’s a lot more that happened that affected Mr. Chauvin’s actions.”
Recently, an MMA fighter calls Chauvin out for his actions, and as an off-duty fire fighter, he was frustrated that he was not allowed to intervene with the situation because Chauvin’s choke hold was a “lethal blood choke,” This isn’t the first individual who had been testifying to the court that they were denied any right of contributing to the situation.