George Floyd died due to lack of oxygen, not drugs: Doctor

Witness in murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin offers detailed medical explanation for Floyd’s death.

George Floyd died of a lack of oxygen from being pinned to the pavement with a knee on his neck, a medical expert testified at former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial on Thursday, rejecting Chauvin’s defence theory that drug use and underlying health problems killed Floyd. “A healthy person subjected to what Mr Floyd was subjected to, would have died,” said prosecution witness Dr Martin Tobin, a lung and critical care specialist at a veterans hospital and medical school in Chicago. Using easy-to-understand language to explain medical concepts and loosening his necktie to make a point, Tobin told the jury that Floyd’s breathing was severely constricted while Chauvin and two other officers held the 46-year-old Black man down on his stomach last May with his hands cuffed behind him and his face jammed against the ground.