Posted on 12/21/2014 5:58:23 AM PST by RC one
Much has alrteady been said of the alleged choke hold employed by officer Panatelo against Eric Garner and the resulting turn of events that ultimately ended with Garner's death. I have watched the video dozens of time and would like to offer my own perspective, as an ER nurse, of what happened. I will include two You Tube video links as references.
In video number 1, we observe the initial confrontation between Garner and the police.
At 38 seconds, officer Pantaleo has attempted to subdue Garner and we see his left arm going around Garner's neck. This is the beginning of the alleged choke hold. Pantaleo wrestles the clearly conscious and alert Garner to the ground. 10 seconds later, we see the infamous image of Garner lying on the ground on his right side with Pantaleo restraining Garner in either a choke hold or a rear head lock.
Between 48 seconds and 53 seconds, we see Garner come off his side somewhat as officers attempt to place his hands behind his back to handcuff him. In this same time, Panataleo has released the choke hold/head lock and at 53 seconds we hear Garner say, for the first time, "I can't breathe".
at 55 seconds, Pantaleo has fully released Garner from the head lock/choke hold and is seen placing his hands on the side of Garner's head.
At 56 seconds, garner again states "I can't breathe" while officers attempt to hand cuff him.
At 58 seconds Garner states again "I can't breathe" for the third time.
and again at 59 seconds.
and at 1:00 minute, and again at 1:02 seconds and at 1:04 seconds.
At 1:12 seconds, Garner is done talking and is on the ground surrounded by police officers. It is difficult to see what is happening at this point but we know that Garner was released from the choke hold/head lock 19 seconds ago and was on his side at that time. We know that he started complaining of difficulty breathing at that time. We also know that if he was in an actual choke hold and was unable to breathe from it, he wouldn't have been able to speak. At most he would have been able to squeak or gurgle. Words would not have been possible. He wasn't having trouble breathing because he was being choked by officer Pantaleo.
The preliminary autopsy report concluded that there was no damage to the trachea or neck bones which means his trachea was not collapsed from trauma and he, therefore, wasn't having difficulty breathing from a collapsed or otherwise impaired trachea/airway.
The initial story was that Garner died of a heart attack in the back of the ambulance en route to the hospital. Difficulty breathing is a very common sign of a heart attack.
It therefore seems safe to assume that Garner suffered his fatal heart attack at 53 seconds and ultimately lost consciousness at around 1:12 seconds, 19 seconds later. Loss of consciousness, incidentally, is another very common symptom of a heart attack.
So, Garner had a heart attack and passed out on the sidewalk. At this point, in accordance with American Heart Association guidelines, CPR, rescue breathing, and defibrillation via an automatic external defibrillator while waiting for the EMS to arrive would have been the appropriate response.
This brings us to You Tube video number 2:
It isn't clear how much time has elapsed between the end of the first video and the beginning of the second video so we will assume no time and focus on the events of video number 2. Throughout video #2, what is abundantly clear is that Eric Garner is completely unresponsive and completely unconscious. Notice how Garner requires two officers to keep him from flopping onto his abdomen throughout this video; at 2:23 seconds we have a clear example of what I'm talking about. It's obvious that Garner is limp and lifeless at this point.
Notice at 2:29 seconds the officers calmly talking amongst themselves. As an ER nurse, what is, in my opinion, most obviously lacking throughout this video are the three aforementioned things-chest compressions, rescue breathing, and defibrillation. Instead, we see a very large number of police officers standing around doing nothing while Garner slowly dies of the heart attack he suffered a few minutes ago.
At 2:37 seconds, EMS has arrived on the scene.
At 3:48, Garner is still very much lifeless on the sidewalk and not a single attempt has been made to resuscitate him.
At 4:03 seconds, the EMS takes their initial look at garner.
She spends 10 seconds looking for signs of respirations and obviously sees none.
at 4:13 seconds, she checks for a pulse.
at 4:24 seconds, she stops looking for a pulse.
at 4:28 seconds she checks for responsiveness. Garner is still unresponsive.
At 4:48 seconds, Garner is rolled to his back and the EMS lady continues to assess. Notice at 5:54, the hand on the abdomen assessing for breathing. again.
As of 6:08 seconds, I certainly hevaen't seen any chest movement but the video quality isn't great. I think we can assume, however, given that he is A.) unconscious and B.) that he ultimately died of a heart attack, we can assume that his heart is not beating meaningfully at this point and he isn't spontaneously breathing and is, not adequately perfusing his brain or his heart with oxygenated blood.
At 6:24 seconds, he is loaded onto a stretcher. Notice his right leg which lifelessly falls off the stretcher. He is clearly unconscious and unresponsive at that point. to put it another way, he's dead.
At 6:36 seconds, a bystander finally asks the million dollar question: "Why ain't nobody doing CPR"?
A cop respinds, "he's breathing". Sure he is.
at 7:20 seconds, Garner is carted off down the steet where he is placed into an ambulance. According to the official story, he then suffered a heart attack in the back of the ambulance and died en route to the hospital.
BS.
He had the heart attack approximately 53 seconds into video number 1.
and he died not because of a choke hold by Officer Pantaleo but because a dozen cops stood around for about 7 minutes and declined to render any kind of aid to a man that had just suffered a heart attack.
and finally, let's not forget, it was all over non-compliance with a local tax ordinance. Your government at work.
True, he should not have resisted initially as he clearly did but aid should have been rendered.
So, that's how I see it.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that this story has been made increasingly unclear.
The initial report of a heart attack and lack of trauma to the airway does not jibe with the final coroner's report of "neck compression" as the cause of death. We have the video though, for now, and that is not so easily obfuscated. The truth as I see it is that Pantaleo was set up to take the fall for the gross negligence displayed by every cop on that scene because it looked better for the department, because it makes for a more manageable narrative, and because it made it easier to make the story go away in order to shield Mayor de Blasio from the fallout.
We should not forget that this all resulted over minor taxes and that NYPD Chief of department Philip Banks (the highest ranking African American LEO in NYC who quietly retired shortly all of this) had issued an order to crack down on loosie sales days before Garner died.
and who does the NYPD Chief of department Philip Banks take his orders from?
Mayor Bill de Blasio, Democrat.
The cops aren’t EMS workers. I don’t think is was negligence as much as lack of awareness. They are used to drama. They probably thought that is all it was. So train them a little more about heart attacks and obesity issues and other medical issues and proper responses. Minus his medical condition the officers handled it very smoothly. They did not understand the medical issue until it was too late.
The minor nature of the icharge is irrelevant.
CPR is taught at the academy and there were a dozen cops standing around. They knew what needed to be done. Briana’s law is supposed to make it mandatory that they receive CPR retraining every two years. Briaana’s law is named after a girl who died of asthma exacerbation because a Brooklyn cop was more interested in writing Briana’s mother a traffic ticket than providing any kind of assistance to the unconscious, non-breathing, dying 11 year old girl. New York’s finest all right.
This guy was an everyday nuisance so the cops let him die and now they dcn’t have to deal with him anymore. Problem solved.
+1.
Very informative, thanks for the detailed analysis. It was disconcerting to see the disconnect between the video with many seconds of Garner speaking suggesting that the neck hold was not damaging and the autopsy discussion of neck damage. The failure to respond with chest pressure is damning as you say. Presided over by a Black police sargeant as well.
Truth would have hurt but would have led toward a defusing the situation instead of inflaming it.
Too glib. Maybe if the guy had been a gang banger or a gunman. Why shouldn’t the black community be upset about the negligence?
There is a word for it. Misfeasance — The wrongful exercise of authority.
Yes, the video is very informative. I am not embarrassed to reveal I am a frequent watcher of the TV show “Cops.” Its 10-minute segments are perfect for someone like me who keeps the TV on the background and goes in and out of the TV room doing chores all the time. Anyway, anyone who watches Cops will recognize that the police treated Garner like any other pain-in-the-ass lawbreaker trying to resist arrest. This is what the police do — try to get a jerk in cuffs and when he resists, they take him down. Sorry Garner, that’s what happens. And sorry you had asthma. It was the asthma that made you unable to breathe. Without an inhaler, you were doomed.
I think it is malfeasance.
Anyway, the cops didn’t help their cause by refusing to help him after he had a heart attack on the sidewalk.
Thanks for your informed analysis. Non-compliant law breakers take a dangerous course when dealing with a police force that has been taught try not to use deadly force in normal arrest situations.
If the guy would have said, okay, I understand you are arresting me and I will comply but want my attorney, he would be alive today probably without even a citation.
I can’t agree with that. He was not engaged in directly hostile activities warranting a death sentence. He was engaged in black market activities and IMHO due to tyrannical tax policy.
Yes, he did resist but the whole situation was created by the totalitarian state. He may have been a petty thug but we can’t ignore the circumstances that brought us to this point. He should be alive today, scumbag or not.
What side will we take when the government makes another land grab and sends a militarized police force? What side will we take when Obamacare denies us access to healthcare based on our voting record and political identification? These are the questions we need to be asking in this particular incident. This supination does apply, because there will be active resistance from citizens in response to leftist policy. It may be in the form of a black market or even physical protest.
This was an unacceptable death.
What is he heck is supination?!? Darn you, ipad spell checker, you have foiled me again....
“Situation”
The cops probably had to deal with retail shopowners complaints about Garner every day. They finally got sick of it and took the guy down and then just let nature take its course. What’s unbelievable about that?
“This was an unacceptable death”
Duh, yeh!
Its entirely believable. ‘Letting nature take its course’ is a euphemism for cold blooded homicide. I’ll support the cops a long way but when a citizen is in medical jeopardy they should not be denied treatment. We had similar case.
It would benefit both the police and the community if they would draw the line on the side of concern for life and safety.
Malfeasance is more intentional. Misfeasance is more unintentional, but a poor judgement of authority.
Obama: Malfeasance or Misfeasance or Nonfeasance? I say over the 6 years he’s committed all three.
RC one is either not an ER nurse or a bad one.
In trauma, we consider it defacto proof that an airway is intact and patent if the pt can say anything including “I can’t breathe”.
EMS said he was breathing. You don’t do CPR on a Pt with spontaneous respirations and a pulse. I deal with EMS every day. They know what they are doing.
Garner wasn’t just involved in selling “loosies”, He was a cereer criminal who sold “loosies” in front of ethnic stores as a way of extorting money from them. That is why they needed a 300+ pound guy who refused arrest. He was there to intimidate people of color NOT to call the police, but to pay him to move. It was a protection racket that wouldn’t work if he moved when police told him to.
God bless the families of the two policemen, neither of them “white” that died because of this nonsense.
Thanks for your contribution. That makes sense.
Besides, no matter what all the arm-chair analysts say, I believe the grand jury was fair and thorough.
The protocol for a witnessed heart attack is chest compressions, rescue breathing, and defibrillation with an AED
From the American Heart Association: Early CPR can improve the likelihood of survival, and yet CPR is often not provided until the arrival of professional emergency responders.5 Chest compressions are an especially critical component of CPR because perfusion during CPR depends on these compressions. Therefore, chest compressions should be the highest priority and the initial action when starting CPR in the adult victim of sudden cardiac arrest. The phrase “push hard and push fast” emphasizes some of these critical components of chest compression. High-quality CPR is important not only at the onset but throughout the course of resuscitation. Defibrillation and advanced care should be interfaced in a way that minimizes any interruption in CPR.6
And here's this from WebMD: •If a person who might be having a heart attack becomes unconscious, start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). If you're not CPR-trained, the 911 dispatcher can talk you through the steps until help arrives.
And from the British Heart Foundation: Someone who has had a cardiac arrest will be unconscious and won’t be breathing normally. If you see someone having a cardiac arrest, you can increase the person's chances of survival by phoning 999 and giving them immediate CPR.
and again, he died of a heart attack en route to the hospital according to the initial reports which I previously linked to. The only question is when. How can you watch video number 2 and not conclude that the heart attack occurred in video number 1, a good 8 minutes before Garner was ever placed into the ambulance.
The video is right there for everyone to see. Attacking me personally doesn't change that.
The EMTs who responded to the call, incidentally, were fired two days later:
Hmmm, I wonder why that was.
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