Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Paramedic Says George Floyd Was "Deceased" When He Arrived

Paramedic Says George Floyd Was "Deceased" When He Arrived

"When I showed up he was deceased and I dropped him off at the hospital and he was still in cardiac arrest," paramedic Derek Smith said.

A paramedic testified on Thursday at the high-profile trial of the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd that the 46-year-old Black man was already dead when he arrived.

"When I showed up he was deceased and I dropped him off at the hospital and he was still in cardiac arrest," paramedic Derek Smith said on the fourth day of the murder and manslaughter trial of Derek Chauvin.

Chauvin, 45, was captured on video kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed Floyd for more than nine minutes during Floyd's May 25, 2020 arrest for passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

The video of Chauvin, who is white, restraining Floyd went viral and sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality around the world.

Prosecutors are seeking to prove that Chauvin's actions led to Floyd's death while the former officer's defense attorney has claimed that he died due to illegal drugs and underlying medical conditions.

Smith said Chauvin and other police officers were still on top of Floyd when he and his fellow paramedic Seth Bravinder arrived on the scene in an ambulance.

Smith said he checked the carotid artery in Floyd's neck to see if he had a pulse. "I did not feel one," he said. "In lay terms, I thought he was dead."

Smith said he and Bravinder and the officers loaded Floyd into the ambulance and they tried to revive him using chest compressions and a defibrillator.

Their efforts were unsuccessful.

"He's a human being and I was trying to give him a second chance at life," Smith said.

Bravinder also told the court that when he and Smith arrived Floyd was "unresponsive."

"I did not see him moving or breathing," he said. "He was limp."

"We got addicted"


Also testifying on Thursday was Courteney Ross, Floyd's girlfriend of nearly three years, and she was questioned extensively about Floyd's history of drug use.

Ross, a 45-year-old mother of two who works in a coffee shop, said she had been Floyd's girlfriend since August 2017.

She cried as she recounted their first meeting, which took place at a homeless shelter where Floyd had been working as a security guard.

Ross said she had gone there to visit the father of one of her sons and Floyd saw her looking sad in the lobby and asked if he could "pray" with her.

"It was so sweet," she said. "I had lost a lot of faith in God."

Ross acknowledged that both she and Floyd had struggled with opioid addiction.

"We both suffered from chronic pain," she said. "Mine was in my neck and his was in his back. We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction, many times."

Ross said she and Floyd each had prescriptions for pain relievers but sometimes they got pills on the "black market."

She said Floyd had been hospitalized for several days in March 2020 for an overdose.

Floyd had been "clean" after that, she said, but he appeared to have begun using pills again in the two weeks before his death.

"Extinguishing his life"


Nelson asked Ross whether Floyd had purchased pills previously from Morries Hall, who was with Floyd the day that he died.

Ross said she believed that he had at times obtained pills from Hall.

Hall filed a notice with the court on Wednesday that if he is called to testify at Chauvin's trial he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Ben Crump, a Floyd family attorney, released a statement after Ross's testimony denouncing what he called "defense attempts to construct the narrative that George Floyd's cause of death was the Fentanyl in his system."

"We want to remind the world who witnessed his death on video that George was walking, talking, laughing, and breathing just fine before Derek Chauvin held his knee to George's neck, blocking his ability to breathe and extinguishing his life," Crump said.

Police body camera footage of Floyd's arrest was shown on Wednesday to the nine-woman, five-man jury hearing the case in a heavily guarded Minneapolis courtroom.

On the footage, a distressed Floyd says repeatedly that he "can't breathe" and calls for his mother until he eventually passes out.

Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the police force, faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge -- second-degree murder.

The other three former police officers involved in the arrest -- Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng -- are to be tried separately later this year.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×