Elijah McClain death: Paramedics who injected Colorado Black man with ketamine found guilty
Elijah McClain death: Paramedics who injected Colorado Black man with ketamine found guilty
A Colorado jury on Friday found two paramedics guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Elijah McClain near his home in Aurora.
For those wondering about the cop angle, the cops ordered it.
""The firefighters/paramedics could have made a difference for Elijah to still be here and alive, but they chose wrong instead of right. If they had done the right things instead of following killer cop orders, then the killer cops would have been the only ones on trial, and I am sure they would have faced all of the blame alone with no one to cover up their crimes. Ketamine causes amnesia, so if Elijah had survived, he wouldn't have remembered what happened to him," she said, in part."
Colorado Attorney General Weiser's decision to criminalize split-second medical decisions sets a dangerous, chilling precedent for pre-hospital care in our country. There are far-reaching consequences we will address at a more appropriate time. But when politics drive prosecution – forcing firefighters and paramedics to second-guess decisions – public safety is compromised.
They didn't have to make that "split-second" decision though did they?
From the video it's obvious by the time that they inject the Ketamine that the Elijah is no longer moving, so there was clearly no justification to administer the Ketamine..
And even if there had been, it's never good practice to go for a maximum dose when you don't know the patient's parameters. You should start conservatively and go upwards like a proper medical professional, rather than just ball-parking it and killing them.
Additionally, they make excuses that they didn't know Elijah's airway was restricted or what their pulse was - to which I say why didn't they do those basic medical checks before deciding to stick a needle into him? That's criminal neglect, plain and simple.
Ok, it’s in their protocol to give ketamine for excited delirium… which is a sketchy diagnosis made by cops (a whole other can of worms).
5ml per kilogram is the protocol. The paramedic says he gave 500 ml in the article, a dose for a 220 lb person. Admittedly I only see the picture posted in the article, but I think Elijah wasn’t quite that big.
There’s a lot of weirdness going on here and Aurora is probably safer with these two medical providers out of the picture.
Edit: mg, not ml.
The cops were acquitted, but these two are being named and shamed?
Sounds like the prescriptive result for a black man dying in a police interaction.
This has some personal relevance to me as the first time I heard of police injecting people with ketamine, I was wtf, that sounds awful, seriously? I got into a conversation on a local subspez and 2-3 people who claimed to be EMTs responded and said NO, it is GREAT, of course we inject people with ketamine. Knowing the pharmacology of ketamine I pointed out that is really disturbing, like, not only is it physically dangerous but nobody wants to do drugs with cops. Ketamine is PCP Lite. They told me no, no, I was super-wrong. I can only hope if those people were real EMTs (it was on /r/Denver) they have figured out it is a bad idea. But as recently as last month someone on the same sub (yes, I still talk on reddit sorry) told me NO, "I am an EMT" and giving ketamine to people subdued by police is fantastic.