Photo: Getty Images
A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a Black man who died after he was removed from an ambulance by Rochester police officers, per News10NBC.
According to the lawsuit, Julian Coleman initially called 911 because he couldn't breathe. EMTs responded to the incident and put Coleman in an AMR ambulance, where he panicked and grabbed one of the employees, the suit states.
EMTs then called police to have him removed from the ambulance en route to the hospital.
An EMT claimed that Coleman jumped at her and grabbed her arm while demanding oxygen. Coleman attempted to explain to the responding officers that he was "freaking out."
"You would freak out too if you couldn’t breathe,” Coleman said.
In a video of the incident, Coleman collapsed on the street as he was forced out of the ambulance. Coleman was laid face-down on the sidewalk for roughly 2.5 minutes before someone came to his aid.
The man was later loaded back into the ambulance and transported to the hospital where he never regained consciousness and died two weeks later. While in the hospital, Coleman was put on a respirator in intensive care and diagnosed with an anoxic brain injury.
The lawsuit alleges that Coleman died due to a lack of oxygen, and officers and the ambulance company failed to provide him with proper medical care.
Stephen Schwarz, an attorney representing Coleman's family, said they have experts ready to testify in the case.
“We feel extremely confident that the medicine is very straightforward here that he died because he was deprived of oxygen. If he had been given oxygen in the ambulance, he never would have even lost consciousness,” Schwarz said. “This is not an uncommon thing that they have to deal with, they’re trained. The training is not to set people out on the street and have them die.”
The Black Information Network is your source for Black News! Get the latest news 24/7 on The Black Information Network. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app or click HERE to tune in live.