The Elijah McClain Case with Graham Judd

Transcript

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Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

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Welcome back to the show.

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You're gonna be excited about today's guest.

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I know who I am.

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Graham Judd is a paramedic and an adjunct college professor.

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He's been a program director at the college level and he has over 20 years of experience in various leadership roles.

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He's not a law enforcement guest, but paramedics, first responders.

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They're all dealing with very, very similar issues as law enforcement.

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What brought my attention to Graham was an article he wrote called the Elijah McClain Case, convicting paramedics for following training.

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Graham Judd, how are you doing, sir?

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I'm doing great Travis.

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How are you today?

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Now, Graham, you and I hooked up and you ended up publishing a few articles, and this McClain article was very interesting because, as I told you over the phone, welcome to law enforcement.

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They've been throwing cops or arresting cops, throwing cops in jail for following their training and policy for some time, and now, all of a sudden, it's crossed over to the paramedic world and I just wanted to get your thoughts on when this occurred.

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Was this something that shocked you?

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Was this something that you didn't think would happen, or what were your thoughts when you saw this occur?

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Well, it really shocked me, because the idea that I couldn't go to work today, get arrested tomorrow and never see my daughters again for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years is just absolutely horrifying to me.

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You know, I've been doing this a long time, I'm good at what I do.

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But, travis, I'm a human, just like those two paramedics in Aurora.

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They're human.

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So if somebody makes a mistake, whether it's me or one of my brothers or sisters in EMS, why are we being criminally prosecuted for something that is historically considered malpractice and negligence, for example, historically has been considered a civil issue, right Right?

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I don't understand how in the world someone can criminally prosecute a paramedic simply for going into work and doing what they feel is best for the patient at that time.

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Yeah, we're gonna get in a specific case, because it's gonna get even more outrageous when you hear about the details, because the media and the narrative is not what Graham is gonna tell you about.

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Graham actually read the autopsy, actually read the reports, actually knows what happened versus the media narrative and we'll get into that.

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But before we do, graham, I mean this is a pretty courageous stance.

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I mean I haven't heard a whole lot of people speak up on this issue and there should be right.

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And that was sort of the problem in law enforcement.

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When this began in law enforcement, nobody in the profession spoke up, nobody said what's going on here, nobody said what you just said.

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And that's why I wanted to bring you on, because this is a similar moment in the paramedic world or the medical world, because if this is gonna be the pattern, you need to get involved right now to make sure it's not the pattern, and is that why you're speaking up?

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The goal is to get ahead of the curve here.

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We've seen it in law enforcement over and over and over again.

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When something happens, it's well, it's because of this or it's because of that.

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Every instance that I can think of in recent history where someone has died in law enforcement custody and the law enforcement officers had been prosecuted, no one fails to mention the fact that that all started with the person who died not following a lawful order of a police officer, or that all started with someone who was being combative or fighting with police officers.

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Nobody ever mentions that it's always the law enforcement officer that gets the blame.

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It's the technique the law enforcement officer uses that gets the blame.

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And now in this Aurora case, as I was reading through some of the literature AP and Reuters and things of that nature essentially what happened is the cops involved in this case were acquitted.

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Well, who else is there to go after?

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The only other folks there were the paramedics.

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And that's exactly what happened.

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They wanted to hold somebody accountable for this death and they did, and ultimately it ended up in the prosecution and the conviction of two paramedics on negligent homicide charges.

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And when I was reading through this just there's so much information out there, travis, but when I was reading through it, the initial autopsy of this young man, this young man's death, actually occurred in 2019.

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And the Associated Press reported that social justice protests drew renewed attention to the McLean case, prompting the indictments.

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So the indictments weren't prompted based off what the paramedics did.

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The indictments weren't prompted based off their behavior, not off the negligence or anything like that.

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In fact, when they decided to reopen the case, there wasn't even a civil trial.

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So this wasn't done because law enforcement did anything wrong.

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This wasn't done because paramedics did anything wrong.

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This was 100% a media driven prosecution against two paramedics who were attempting to do their job.

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Yeah, you combine the media and you combine the politics and you throw a little social justice action and then you get this.

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And let me just give everybody the background of where we got here.

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You're right, this occurred in 2019 and there's been a lot of lies being said.

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And I want you to notice the pattern here because it happens in law enforcement.

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The pattern is an incident occurs, people lie about it, the media lies about it, they get everybody stirred up and then it's almost it's too late because nobody in the front is telling the truth.

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Well, here's the truth Officers in a war get a call of a suspicious subject wearing a full face ski mask, waving his arms wildly.

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Now this is August in Aurora it's safe to say that wearing full I'm talking full face ski mask with just eye holes.

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Right, it's pretty odd and that's a legitimate.

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Now I want to call some citizens.

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Sees that and goes this is weird.

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They call the police.

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Now this is where a lot of number one comes in, because the big lie the media told you is the police had no reason to stop him.

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Illegal stop, completely a lie.

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Obviously they have a reason to stop him and they do.

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Once they stop him, he becomes combative, he resist.

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Nobody talks about this.

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The officers get him under control.

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They have to use a vascular neck restraint or carotid artery hold to do that.

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The paramedics show up.

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He's completely out of control.

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Still, they court of, size him up on the weight.

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They see his behavior and they do what they've done.

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Up 10 times before they shot him with ketamine and the ketamine dosage, if you were in a hospital, setting by weight, was up to like 425.

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And I forget what the M or the L's are, but up to 425, they ended up shooting him with 500 from their experience and training and it worked.

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But unfortunately he dies and they actually.

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He died a couple of days later, I think.

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He went and some.

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He had a couple of heart attacks later on that day and so obviously this goes to the autopsy.

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The autopsy comes back.

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We don't know how he died, which is the truth.

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Right Law enforcement medical professionals.

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They deal with an unhealthy population.

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This kid had actually had an LSD episode two years prior to this and was hospitalized for manic behavior with the LSD overdose.

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So this is something for some reason this had happened in the past and it happened on this day as well.

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The difference was there were cops and paramedics around him when it happened this time.

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Last time there wasn't.

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So the autopsy comes back and the coroner says I don't know how he died.

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He does address the vascular neck restraint and said, yeah, this happened because, remember, you gotta remember after George Floyd, anytime you touch someone's neck, graham, it became some serious attempted murder charge, right, and obviously that's ridiculous.

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Nobody's ever been hurt seriously or died from a vascular neck restraint, including the up 10,000 people in the gym at lunchtime as I speak, doing it right now, and then including the UFC that you watch on the weekend.

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So it's ridiculous.

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But once again, law enforcement has left this narrative play out and so they came after law enforcement.

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They make no mistake, this wasn't about the paramedics.

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It ended up being about the paramedics, but they did not like the vascular neck restraint.

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Well, the coroner didn't help them.

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His coroner said that that's not what killed him and so this case went away, which is what should have happened, because nobody killed him.

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George Floyd happens in 2020, the very next year.

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If they what you just said, graham, this case comes back up.

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The coroner actually amends his report to enable the prosecution of them.

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He basically said something in the effect of that.

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Police restrained him, paramedics used ketamine and that was somewhat the cause of his death.

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He did.

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He did ask VNR.

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They wanted him to say the officers killed him using the VNR.

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But he at least had some assemblance of ethics, you know which.

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I got a question.

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Anyway, you already did one autopsy.

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Now you're changing it based on pressure.

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And he said, yeah, the VNR did happen, but literature says that this likely didn't kill him and plus, it's very popular in the martial arts.

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So he sort of put that to bed.

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So the officers really came.

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The officers were ended up being acquitted, but that's not what I think they wanted, and then that left the paramedics, as you said, with the ketamine.

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Now the autopsy is important because the coroner could change what he said in the autopsy, graham, but he can't change what's in someone's body.

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So explain to me why that charge on the ketamine is so ridiculous.

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It's beyond laughable and it's just crazy what's happening, to sit here and talk about these individuals in prison right now.

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So I want to get into the dosage, I want to get into the medication, I want to get into the overdose Real quick, though I want to get into the timeline, and you've laid this out perfectly in terms of what happened and how it happened.

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But the timeline is very important because this event took place at some point over the summer of 2019, right?

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So this is pre-COVID, this is pre-George Floyd, this is pre anything that's going to get attention, really.

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So in November of 2019, the district attorney declined to press charges on this.

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It wasn't until July of 2020, almost a full year after the incident took place.

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Now, I believe in 2019, they had some elections.

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They got a new mayor, they got a new city council.

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The NAACP got involved and started working with the city council.

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So there was some political pressure and things like that.

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The George Floyd case happened.

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I believe that was May of 2020.

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It was July of 2020, during that time, when there was just turmoil, where there was animus, when there was a lot of pushback on law enforcement just a really, really bad time in our history that they reopened this case.

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Now, it wasn't until August of 2020 that the family finally decides they're gonna file a lawsuit.

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Now, they didn't file a lawsuit against the police department and they didn't file a lawsuit against the paramedics and they didn't file a lawsuit against the officer because they didn't have a lawsuit.

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And they didn't have a lawsuit because the autopsy said, hey, this is an undetermined cause of death.

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Well, the autopsy so that was when the lawsuit was filed.

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The autopsy was revisited and amended on July 15th of 2021.

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This is almost two full years after the initial autopsy.

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Now, it's not like they went and dug Elijah McLean up out of the ground and reassessed the body or anything like that.

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They pencil with.

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It is what happened, and they pencil with it because of the political climate in the summer of 2020, and because of the lawsuit that was filed against the city.

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And it wasn't until September of 2021 that they actually indicted the officers and indicted the fire department, the paramedics, and essentially what they indicted the paramedics for is the amended autopsy report said something to the effect of acute ketamine toxicity, or something the medical examiner said I believe this tragic fatality is the result of ketamine toxicity.

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Now, when you look at that and you hear that one statement in and of itself, it sounds like, well, you know the ketamine probably killed.

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So let me stop you for a minute, graham, because I'm about to lose my mind.

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So he doesn't dig a body up, he doesn't take blood again, he doesn't do anything other than take a look at the original document and wordsmith it and change it.

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So his opinion changed, apparently two years later.

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Now can you imagine if a law enforcement officer did that Like three years?

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Two years later, you're about to go to trial.

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No, you know, wait a minute.

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I know that original report.

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I know my original statement said this, but no, now I think it's this.

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Nobody on this planet would let them get away with that and we are permitting this to occur in this country.

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And, by the way, the reason we're talking about it is this isn't just for law enforcement.

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It's been happening there for a while.

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It's not just gonna be for paramedics.

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It's now there.

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What's next?

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You're accountant, you're lawyer, you're a medical doctor.

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That's actually the third leading cause of death in America.

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They call them medical mistakes or those now crimes.

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This opens up Pandora's box that nobody's talking about.

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We got people of court is cheering, okay, somebody's held accountable.

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That's justice, folks.

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This is not justice.

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This is a travesty of what's going on in our country.

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Thank God we have people like you, graham, that are speaking up, because I see no one else speaking up.

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That is what is mind numbing to me.

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That's what courage leadership is about.

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It doesn't matter what the narrative says, doesn't matter what the media says, doesn't matter that you're gonna get canceled if you say it.

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What matters is what's right and what's true.

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And you tell me ketamine toxicity.

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How does that change?

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In two years?

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His blood didn't change.

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What the results of his blood work didn't change.

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How do you come up with that?

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Well and that's the interesting thing about that Is the amended report.

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He makes two statements that I believe the prosecution really held onto.

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One was that he believes it was a tragic fatality resulting in ketamine toxicity and the other is that had the patient not been administered ketamine, he likely would have recovered.

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Now that sounds good from the prosecution standpoint.

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But he also says I cannot rule out that other metabolic abnormalities contributed to his death.

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He can't say that they did, but he can't say that they didn't.

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So he reiterates his initial findings in his report I still contend that the appropriate manner of death is undetermined.

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So he doubles down on the undetermined part.

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Even though he's pencil whipped and thrown whatever language in there that the district attorney's office wanted, he still doubles down and says I think it's undetermined.

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Well, now the prosecution at least has something they can move on.

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They're getting sued by the family and they're gonna try and hold somebody accountable to make it look like they're doing the right thing, when the fact of the matter is the medical examiner's initial report that undetermined.

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His amended report still says undetermined.

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And then there's some really interesting facts in the autopsy report and you gotta read beyond the headlines to get this stuff right and some of this stuff is.

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You know, it's medical terminology, it's medical language.

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Not everybody is very well versed in this.

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But there were other complications.

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For example, his ejection fraction, which basically means the amount of blood that he's pumping out of his heart, is only 25%.

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The average ejection fraction is 52 to 72%, which means his ejection fraction, the amount of blood that his heart pumps out in a minute, is 50 to 65% lower than the general population.

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Well then they went in and they measure his left anterior descending artery.

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It's a coronary artery.

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His measured one to two millimeters in width at the widest point.

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The average left anterior descending coronary artery measures 3.7 millimeters, which means, again, his heart is 50 to, or the arteries in his heart are 50 to 75% smaller than the average person's.

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They note that the left anterior coronary artery is atrophic, which means it has retracted, it shrunk, it's small.

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So there's some things in here that when you have a little bit of medical knowledge you go.

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Well, wait a minute, this could have been a contributing factor.

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We don't know.

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We don't know that it was a contributing factor, but we know that his heart's not normal.

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Then we read a little bit farther and evidently during this tussle, he vomited and he actually breathed those contents, the vomit, back down into his lungs.

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Well, your lungs are supposed to house air, they're not supposed to house anything else.

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So we look at his brain and they note what is called anoxic encephalopathy.

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In other words, anoxic means without oxygen.

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So he's got brain damage, and he's got brain damage from lack of oxygen.

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But we don't even know when that occurred, right.

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So in the public domain we don't have access to the patient care report.

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So we don't know whether or not they used a bag valve mask to provide oxygen to the young man.

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We don't know if they intubated the young man in the field.

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We don't know if they waited until they got to the hospital to put in an advanced airway.

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We don't know any of that stuff.

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That's not told.

00:20:06.913 --> 00:20:10.906
But we do know that if your brain doesn't have oxygen you die.

00:20:10.906 --> 00:20:14.512
So you've got an anoxic brain injury.

00:20:14.512 --> 00:20:16.630
Who knows when that occurred?

00:20:16.630 --> 00:20:18.589
You've got a bad heart.

00:20:18.589 --> 00:20:24.718
You've got vomit or emesis aspirated into the lungs.

00:20:25.805 --> 00:20:30.217
And then we've got some research on ketamine.

00:20:30.217 --> 00:20:40.476
The research on the ketamine shows that the therapeutic range in the blood is 1.0 to 6.3 milligrams per liter.

00:20:40.476 --> 00:20:43.094
That's the therapeutic range.

00:20:43.094 --> 00:20:52.384
The autopsy results showed that Mr McLean's ketamine level was 1.4 milligrams per liter.

00:20:52.384 --> 00:20:55.525
He was well within the therapeutic range.

00:20:55.525 --> 00:21:00.805
If anything, he was on the very low end of the therapeutic range.

00:21:02.230 --> 00:21:06.762
And people are asking well, how long was this blood drawn after he died, whatever, whatever.

00:21:06.762 --> 00:21:25.459
There was no indication in the autopsy that the blood was drawn post-mortem, which means that when they got in and they were doing his initial lab at the hospital, they likely drew the blood at that time and did the toxicology at that time, which would have been within an hour or two of Mr McLean getting to the hospital.

00:21:25.459 --> 00:21:29.765
So within an hour or two of getting to the hospital.

00:21:29.765 --> 00:21:34.805
He is well within the therapeutic range for the ketamine.

00:21:34.805 --> 00:21:39.259
Now there's some argument about the initial dose.

00:21:39.259 --> 00:21:47.219
They say well, the the firefighter allegedly administered 500 milligrams ketamine For his body weight.

00:21:47.219 --> 00:21:58.303
500 is a little bit high, but when you look at the blood, when you look at the serum and plasma levels, it was therapeutic all day long.

00:21:58.482 --> 00:22:09.989
Well, and also, graham, we don't hold first responders that are showing up on the dynamic scene to the same standards of a hospital setting, where you know people's exact weight.

00:22:09.989 --> 00:22:23.685
So they took a look at him, saw his behavior and they made a judgment call Right in the, in the heat of this, which is exactly what the fire chief said, because he, the fire chief in the war, actually said after that they were convicted that they were convicted for doing their job.

00:22:23.685 --> 00:22:34.021
They follow policy and follow training, and the fact that there's not an outrage across all first responders Is very worrisome, because what you described is the absolute truth.

00:22:34.021 --> 00:22:37.910
And and they've made ketamine sound like some evil monster drug.

00:22:37.910 --> 00:22:40.880
Graham, ketamine's a schedule three non-narcotic.

00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:42.682
It's so safe.

00:22:42.682 --> 00:22:45.868
They prescribe it to people for anxiety and they take it daily.

00:22:45.868 --> 00:22:47.178
This is not something.

00:22:47.198 --> 00:22:48.563
They have it in a nasal spray.

00:22:48.604 --> 00:22:49.596
Yeah, yeah it's.

00:22:49.596 --> 00:22:51.864
It's so funny when I see the media go.

00:22:51.864 --> 00:22:56.377
He was given a powerful and a sick stop, stop it.

00:22:56.377 --> 00:22:58.903
This thing would not be scheduled three non-narcotic.

00:22:58.903 --> 00:22:59.826
It was that dangerous.

00:22:59.826 --> 00:23:09.090
And so you have to ignore a lot of science, a lot of evidence, to even say that those paramedics or policemen had anything to do with his death.

00:23:09.090 --> 00:23:09.855
But that's what they've done.

00:23:09.855 --> 00:23:14.977
They've got a conviction in court and this is Dammit.

00:23:14.977 --> 00:23:16.162
I mean this there.

00:23:16.162 --> 00:23:17.538
I cannot believe to me.

00:23:17.538 --> 00:23:26.724
People are going to work in a paramedic row, in a law enforcement row, in a firefighter row, going to these type of calls all the time, and they're not scared out of their mind, graham, of what's happened, are they not?

00:23:26.724 --> 00:23:28.027
Do they not see this and go?

00:23:28.027 --> 00:23:28.769
This could happen to me.

00:23:28.769 --> 00:23:29.750
Is that what's going on here?

00:23:29.750 --> 00:23:30.955
Listen?

00:23:31.517 --> 00:23:50.079
after the first, after the, the first shift that I went to work after this, I mean, I prayed on the way to work that I wasn't going to have to administer a sedative to somebody because With with that case setting precedence, if this guy dies I could be held liable.

00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:53.243
And the the thing is is now they're.

00:23:53.243 --> 00:23:59.980
Even the uh firefighters said that they believe that he had excited delirium and check this out.

00:23:59.980 --> 00:24:04.700
This is this is just blows my mind.

00:24:04.700 --> 00:24:15.595
They're now trying to get rid of an excited delirium diagnosis Because it is disproportionately applied to the african-american community.

00:24:16.576 --> 00:24:24.442
That the FBI data on officer assault is disproportionate, and so if it's disproportionate on that, then it's going to be disproportionate on Fit, on incusty deficits as well.

00:24:24.442 --> 00:24:25.203
It just makes sense.

00:24:25.203 --> 00:24:35.355
But they've used race to bring in the emotion to then say let's get rid of this excited delirium that's been around for over a hundred years, by the way, documented over a hundred years of medical journals.

00:24:35.355 --> 00:24:35.997
This is real.

00:24:35.997 --> 00:24:39.707
But then once they get rid of that Graham you've, you've alluded to it.

00:24:39.707 --> 00:24:40.657
Well, now you.

00:24:40.657 --> 00:24:48.823
Now it's well, if you die with police or fire or paramedics around, you didn't die because of anything other than the fact that police, fire, medics are around.

00:24:48.923 --> 00:24:56.385
And then charges start coming and and so that's the problem is that that they're they're going to eliminate.

00:24:56.385 --> 00:25:02.663
This is a legitimate clinical diagnosis, right, excited delirium generally occurs and men.

00:25:02.663 --> 00:25:06.484
The men are typically age 25 to 40 years old.

00:25:06.484 --> 00:25:21.509
The men typically have a history of substance abuse and prior to the Excited delirium or prior to the cardiac arrest, the patients are always hyper agitated with a rapid pulse.

00:25:22.095 --> 00:25:36.934
The like those Elijah McLain was in the hospital in 2016 for this Exactly, so don't tell me that excited Lyrium doesn't exist when he was in the hospital in 2016 for those very symptoms.

00:25:38.257 --> 00:25:41.042
Exactly and and there and therein lies the issue.

00:25:41.042 --> 00:25:48.384
He's a young male, he's got a history of substance abuse, he he's hyperactive.

00:25:48.384 --> 00:25:53.644
You know he falls within the guidelines for what excited delirium is?

00:25:53.644 --> 00:25:55.868
He falls under the clinical guidelines.

00:25:55.868 --> 00:25:59.726
But again you've got that narrative that says no, no, no, that couldn't be it.

00:25:59.726 --> 00:26:04.694
Well, listen, man, it doesn't matter what you call it, psychosis is psychosis is psychosis.

00:26:04.694 --> 00:26:09.377
When you're out there getting it's not beat out of you by some nut job we live in a.

00:26:09.518 --> 00:26:15.905
We live in a strange world and everyone needs to be On guard for this, and you need, and we're going to give you some things to help you with this.

00:26:15.905 --> 00:26:18.583
But here's how you can throw innocent people in jail.

00:26:18.583 --> 00:26:24.605
You ignore policy, you ignore training, you ignore procedures, you ignore best practices.

00:26:24.605 --> 00:26:26.476
You lie about it Incessively.

00:26:26.476 --> 00:26:30.010
You doctor possibly a body camera footage or camera footage.

00:26:30.010 --> 00:26:30.875
You keep lying about it.

00:26:30.875 --> 00:26:39.284
You put political pressure on prosecutors and you maybe you get some riots in the streets or protests in the streets, although most of this all happened in a war or following this.

00:26:39.284 --> 00:26:53.121
Then you can get weak leaders like corners to change their mind, weak prosecutors to change their mind by by putting this pressure on them, and then you just keep lying and then, if you get lucky, you get a judge that doesn't let the right evidence in.

00:26:53.121 --> 00:26:55.847
This is a repeat of what happened in the george foyd case.

00:26:55.847 --> 00:26:57.914
Those guys follow policy to follow training.

00:26:57.914 --> 00:27:02.015
Uh, they weren't able to put that in evidence and the jury didn't get all the information.

00:27:02.015 --> 00:27:02.978
They were the convicted.

00:27:02.998 --> 00:27:03.298
And you don't.

00:27:03.298 --> 00:27:05.324
You don't have to say, oh my gosh, travis just said that.

00:27:05.324 --> 00:27:06.287
No, don't believe me.

00:27:06.287 --> 00:27:08.480
Go watch the follow manyapolis.

00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:09.884
The fall many apples dot com.

00:27:09.884 --> 00:27:14.414
And there's no way you'll think that these guys aren't innocent after watching that.

00:27:14.414 --> 00:27:20.159
There's no way, there's no possible way, because they show you the autopsy, they show you the policy, they show you the training.

00:27:20.159 --> 00:27:22.826
And here we are talking about it in the paramedic world.

00:27:22.826 --> 00:27:23.737
So grand.

00:27:23.737 --> 00:27:38.844
What advice do you have To those paramedics going to work today, those firefighters going to work today, or anybody going to work today, because this is going to start Hopping around all sort of different professions and all they have to do to make it work is Lie and bring race in for emotion.

00:27:38.844 --> 00:27:39.806
And then you're there.

00:27:41.075 --> 00:27:53.843
You know, my, my advice is To continue to go to work, continue to do the right thing, continue to follow your protocols and continue to treat people the way they need to be treated.

00:27:53.843 --> 00:27:59.817
You know, the the fact of the matter is this isn't a race thing, this isn't a a you know.

00:27:59.817 --> 00:28:06.186
I promise you, there's not a single cop, there's not a single paramedic who goes to work and thinks I want to hurt somebody today, right?

00:28:06.186 --> 00:28:08.365
We don't want to have to do the paperwork.

00:28:08.365 --> 00:28:09.934
We don't want to be in the spotlight.

00:28:09.934 --> 00:28:11.699
We don't want to be on youtube.

00:28:11.699 --> 00:28:14.003
You know, we don't want to get prosecuted.

00:28:14.003 --> 00:28:15.748
Certainly we don't want to go to jail.

00:28:16.194 --> 00:28:25.344
You know, just go to work, do the right thing, and that's what these guys did, and I think they've got some appeals and ultimately I think that they'll end up getting off on this.

00:28:25.344 --> 00:28:31.107
But the the problem is is the narrative that was fun and the narrative that was sold.

00:28:31.107 --> 00:28:33.301
It's easily refuted.

00:28:33.301 --> 00:28:42.689
One of the things I had some some gomer comments on one of my posts who said well, if you don't believe this was homicide, you shouldn't work in a profession.

00:28:42.689 --> 00:28:49.521
Well, first off, if I left the profession every time somebody said I should have left the profession, I'd have been gone a long time ago.

00:28:49.521 --> 00:28:52.064
They said it during the covid vaccine.

00:28:52.064 --> 00:28:53.329
I didn't want to get a covid vaccine.

00:28:53.329 --> 00:28:55.277
Well, if you don't get a shot, you're killing people.

00:28:55.277 --> 00:28:55.959
You should go home.

00:28:55.959 --> 00:29:02.894
Well, I didn't get a shot, I didn't wear a mask and I never caught covid, so so I'm kind of I'm glad that I've made the decisions.

00:29:02.894 --> 00:29:06.486
I have to stay in this career field and to do what's right by the patient.

00:29:06.895 --> 00:29:11.330
But the the the guy who's saying that has has two very dangerous things.

00:29:11.330 --> 00:29:14.321
Number one is paying attention Just to the media and just to the headlines.

00:29:14.321 --> 00:29:22.376
Right, when there's when, when the prosecution, not the defense, not any objective measure that I could find Nobody.

00:29:22.376 --> 00:29:34.820
But the prosecution said that the patient wasn't monitored, when, when you watch the body cam footage, you can actually see the paramedics say, hey, we need such and we need oxygen.

00:29:34.820 --> 00:29:39.541
That's as soon as they pick this young man up off the ground and put him on the stretcher.

00:29:39.541 --> 00:29:44.397
They're already talking about managing the airway, they're already talking about providing care.

00:29:44.951 --> 00:29:48.961
So people who are walking around saying, well, they didn't monitor the patient, they didn't do this, they didn't do that.

00:29:48.961 --> 00:29:50.876
First off, we don't have the patient care report.

00:29:50.876 --> 00:29:54.839
Second off, we don't have any video footage from the back of the ambulance.

00:29:54.839 --> 00:30:19.243
That's people who are talking strictly out of ignorance, and an argument from ignorance is the most dangerous argument and in this case it was the most damning argument against the two paramedics who were doing their job, right With them, accusing these paramedics of not doing their job too.

00:30:19.243 --> 00:30:25.502
They're also ignoring the fact that the cardiac monitors that we use record everything.

00:30:25.502 --> 00:30:32.220
The time are all recorded Minute by minute by minute, second by second by second.

00:30:32.309 --> 00:30:37.662
So whatever these guys did to monitor, the fire chief looked at and said you did the right thing.

00:30:37.662 --> 00:30:49.259
Moreover, the medical director, the doctor, the physician, md in charge of that service looked at what these guys did and said y'all did the right thing.

00:30:49.259 --> 00:30:56.448
Well, I can promise you, if I screw up, medical director is not going to put his license on the line.

00:30:56.448 --> 00:30:58.193
Right, that's going to be on me.

00:30:58.193 --> 00:31:03.821
In this particular case, the medical director did put his medical license on the line.

00:31:03.821 --> 00:31:06.994
He said y'all did the right thing, y'all followed protocol.

00:31:06.994 --> 00:31:08.454
You tried to treat the patient.

00:31:08.454 --> 00:31:20.317
That indicates that, contrary to the popular narratives, they did monitor the patient, they did treat the patient and they did do the right thing, and that's why they ended up getting in trouble.

00:31:22.609 --> 00:31:31.203
Yeah, pretty amazing and, like I said, I'm so, I'm so proud that you wrote that article and kind of called attention to that.

00:31:31.203 --> 00:31:32.910
What kind of feedback did you get on that article?

00:31:32.910 --> 00:31:37.902
Once again, to get to read the article, go to lawstercom and just type in Elijah McLean.

00:31:37.902 --> 00:31:39.396
You'll see the article come up pretty quick.

00:31:39.396 --> 00:31:44.342
It's titled the Elijah McLean Case Convicting Paramedics for Following Training.

00:31:44.342 --> 00:31:46.096
What kind of feedback did you get on that?

00:31:47.391 --> 00:31:51.381
Overwhelmingly positive, overwhelmingly positive.

00:31:51.381 --> 00:32:10.545
And in lots of people, though, as you mentioned earlier, we're saying I'm scared to go to work, I'm scared to administer these medications, and the bottom line is this with any medication that we administer, we don't know how a person's going to respond until we administer it.

00:32:10.545 --> 00:32:22.878
We know the pharmacodynamics and the pharmacokinetics and we know how some of these medications work at the cellular level and we know what they're supposed to do, but some people have an exaggerated response.

00:32:22.878 --> 00:32:28.501
Maybe you provide a very small amount of sedative to one person and it knocks them completely out.

00:32:28.501 --> 00:32:33.059
Other patients you can give them massive doses of sedatives and it doesn't touch them.

00:32:33.790 --> 00:32:35.650
You can give people blood pressure medication.

00:32:35.650 --> 00:32:38.258
Some people, their blood pressure will fall into the tank.

00:32:38.258 --> 00:32:41.459
Other people, their next blood pressure will be even higher.

00:32:41.459 --> 00:32:56.519
So with any of these medications, you run the risk of having patients who just don't respond the way that they should or the way that the textbooks tell you they ought to, and the bottom line is that's not my fault.

00:32:56.519 --> 00:32:58.275
God made all of us different.

00:32:58.275 --> 00:33:14.458
Theoretically, the medications are going to work this specific way, but it doesn't always work in that case, and that's why, when you see these pharmaceutical commercials on television, they're always like, well, this medication is going to treat ABC, but, by the way, you may die and develop cancer.

00:33:14.458 --> 00:33:16.115
Oh yeah, 100 percent.

00:33:16.351 --> 00:33:20.941
They have to acknowledge that and it's almost as if they may forced everybody to take a vaccine.

00:33:20.941 --> 00:33:23.378
Then they were shocked that there were people that had complications.

00:33:23.378 --> 00:33:28.182
Well yeah, if you tell an entire population to take an aspirin, there can be some people that get hurt by an aspirin.

00:33:28.730 --> 00:33:31.161
And if you tell you know the entire population takes ketamine.

00:33:31.181 --> 00:33:37.501
Tomorrow there's going to be some people that get hurt by ketamine, but overarching benefit, though, is it saves a lot of lives.

00:33:37.501 --> 00:33:40.958
I'm not I'm not just to find people dying taking medications.

00:33:40.958 --> 00:33:50.815
What I'm trying to say is is you're right, when you blanket an entire population, you're going to have some side effects, and drugs do work differently in all people, and we have to acknowledge that.

00:33:50.815 --> 00:34:02.020
And and I'm going to go a step further in the advice you gave is I want all of our paramedics and even law enforcement or firefighters, take a look at your policy on ketamine administration.

00:34:02.020 --> 00:34:03.233
Take a look at it.

00:34:03.650 --> 00:34:20.577
If there's anything that's ambiguous, anything that's not clear, you need to go get something in writing from your superiors, and I because you don't want to be wishing you did that later, because if they're going to expect you to do your job and ketamine plays a role in most of those jobs you don't.

00:34:20.577 --> 00:34:25.239
You don't do this in the back of your mind, and you need to make sure you have support from your superiors.

00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:26.797
I'm not talking about just a head nod.

00:34:26.797 --> 00:34:36.476
You need documentation that if you follow policy and you follow training, you're not going to get treated this way, and I'm trying to work, work away in my mind of how to do this.

00:34:36.476 --> 00:34:41.034
It may be some sort of pledge or policy for these leaders, but these leaders need to be held accountable.

00:34:41.034 --> 00:34:43.523
And thank goodness, the leader in Aurora, the fire chief there.

00:34:43.523 --> 00:34:47.195
He came out and said these guys followed, followed their protocols, they did everything right.

00:34:47.195 --> 00:34:48.675
Why are we even setting here?

00:34:48.675 --> 00:34:52.038
But he's he's one of very few that said that, by the way.

00:34:53.751 --> 00:34:57.380
And you know this, this entire event is terribly, terribly unfortunate.

00:34:57.380 --> 00:34:58.293
It's tragic.

00:34:58.293 --> 00:35:06.661
You know, I'm my heart goes out to the McLean family, but my heart goes out to the law enforcement officers and the paramedics as well.

00:35:06.661 --> 00:35:11.061
This, this was, this was something that truly was completely avoidable.

00:35:11.061 --> 00:35:24.315
You know, if this young man would have just said, hey, I was just listening to music and waving my hands, I'm, you know, I think they said he was carrying a gal in a sweet tea, I'm just taking the tea back home, that would have been, that would have been it.

00:35:24.315 --> 00:35:26.195
You know, there would have been.

00:35:26.195 --> 00:35:35.382
There would have been no neckhold, there would have been no ketamine, there would have been no aspiration, there would have been no death and there would have been no autopsy and there would have been no criminal trial.

00:35:35.382 --> 00:35:39.079
You know this whole entire event is unfortunate.

00:35:39.250 --> 00:35:51.398
Yeah, I mean if anybody believes that a fireman, paramedic or police officer doesn't want option A, I'm just listening to music and carrying this tea home, and then they get to go about their job and go to the next call.

00:35:51.398 --> 00:35:53.235
That's, of course, what everybody wants.

00:35:53.235 --> 00:35:57.501
This, this narrative gram that all these cops and these paramedics, they want to do this.

00:35:57.501 --> 00:36:02.461
No, no, the last thing you want to do is fight someone, have to forcibly inject drugs in somebody.

00:36:02.461 --> 00:36:10.135
That's the last thing you want to have to do, but it's being forced upon us as this is growing and growing and growing, and so this is not going to go away.

00:36:10.135 --> 00:36:11.896
This won't be the last time we hear about this.

00:36:11.896 --> 00:36:22.623
This sets a precedent that should be very concerning, and if you're doing that job at any capacity, you better get clarification directly in writing from your leaders.

00:36:22.623 --> 00:36:28.338
I'll tell you one example that didn't used to make people very happy, but it had an officer that said hey, I'm not getting trained appropriately.

00:36:28.338 --> 00:36:31.599
I've been trying to get to this training and my superiors aren't letting me.

00:36:31.969 --> 00:36:40.081
I would have that officer write a letter to the chief of police saying it's basically saying that I'm putting you on notice that if something happens to me because you have failed to train me.

00:36:40.469 --> 00:36:58.538