Today is Friday, April 9th, and you're listening to The Morning Announcements.

I'm Sammy Sage.

Testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial continued yesterday with a pulmonologist, a national

breathing expert named Martin Tobin, who testified that George Floyd died due to a low level of

oxygen.

Tobin said a person in good health would have died from the restraint administered by

Chauvin, and added that there were no fentanyl-related signs of depression and Floyd's breathing that

would have contributed to his low level of oxygen while he was restrained by Chauvin.

Also Tobin said that the amount of carbon dioxide that was found in his blood is solely

explained by what you expect to happen in somebody who doesn't have ventilation given to him

for nine minutes and fifty seconds.

He also discounted the idea that Floyd could have died due to an underlying heart condition

because if that were the cause of his difficulty breathing, it would have resulted in higher

respiratory rates, and Tobin testified that Floyd's were normal.

This is obviously very different from the argument that the defense is making, which

is that Floyd died from drugs.

However, their case was further undermined when another witness named Daniel Ascenshmid,

who did lab work for Floyd's case, said that Floyd's blood had a fraction of the fentanyl

and nephanphetamine levels found on average in the blood of drivers under the influence

who did not die.

He said that the level of methamphetamine in Floyd's blood was approximately the amount that

you find in the blood of somebody that was given a single dose of methamphetamine as a prescribed

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