Medical expert: Floyd’s lungs couldn’t expand
ST. PAUL, Minn. — George Floyd could have been saved if Minneapolis police officers had moved him into a position to breathe more easily, and his chances of survival “doubled or tripled” if they had performed CPR as soon as his heart stopped, a lung specialist testified Monday at the trial of three former officers charged with violating Floyd’s civil rights.
Floyd died because his upper airway was compressed by Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee, while his position on the hard asphalt with his hands cuffed behind his back — as two other officers helped hold him down — did not allow his lungs to expand, Dr. David Systrom said. That restricted the flow of oxygen and raised carbon dioxide levels in his body, Systrom, a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said at the federal trial for J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao.
“Oxygen delivered to the heart and brain is critical to survival,” Systrom said, later calling Floyd’s death “an eminently reversible respiration failure event.”
Kueng, Lane and Thao are accused of depriving Floyd, 46, of his rights when they failed
to give him medical aid as Chauvin knelt on the Black man’s neck for 9½ minutes. Kueng and Thao are also accused of failing to intervene in the May 2020 killing that triggered protests worldwide and a reexamination of racism and policing.
Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held his legs while
Thao kept bystanders back.
Systrom, who is also an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, testified that video from Kueng’s body camera shows him holding Floyd’s wrist while pressing it down on Floyd’s back, which would have prevented Floyd from being able to relieve the pressure. In video from Lane’s
body camera, it looks like Kueng’s knee is putting pressure on Floyd’s abdomen, Systrom said. He said “it’s difficult to know” if Floyd would have died without the pressure Kueng applied.