Dr. Martin Tobin shown during his testimony. Tobin noted the significance of a picture of Floyd sticking his knuckles against the tires of the patrol car while Chauvin is sitting on him. swimming pool
Dr. Martin Tobin, a pulmonologist, testified that it was “absolutely impossible” to properly expand Floyd’s chest to breathe.
During his testimony, Tobin had been shown a series of stills of body-worn camera images from the scene he had previously reviewed. At one point, Tobin realized the meaning of a picture of Floyd sticking his knuckles against the tires of the patrol car while Chauvin was sitting on him.
Tobin said, “To most people, this doesn’t look particularly important. However, it is extremely important to a physiologist.”
“This tells you that he has exhausted his resources and is now literally trying to breathe with his fingers and knuckles,” he added.
He continued, “Because when you start to breathe, you start to breathe with your rib cage and diaphragm. Then the next thing you recruit is your pectoral muscle, which is the big muscle in your neck. If those are wasted, then rely on those kind of muscles like your fingers to stabilize your entire right side. Because it relies entirely on getting air into the right side. ”
Tobin said he concluded that Floyd was “trying to crank the right side of his chest with his fingers and knuckles against the road.”
“This is his only way to get air into his right lung,” he said.
On his left side, Tobin said, Floyd was trying to breathe with his shoulder in a similar fashion. He said, “Because the breast below is so enlarged, you get very, very little air in.”
“It’s a very bad way of breathing. But that’s what you have to do when all else fails,” he said.
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