[Excited delirium](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5061757/) The cops knew exactly what was going on and called for medical aid. The knee on his neck did not kill him or significantly contribute to his death. Floyd was in bad, bad trouble from the beginning and the only thing that was going to save him was immediate sedation followed by emergency hospital care. Unfortunately, like the large majority of E.D. patients, he died before even reaching the hospital.

Victims of excited delirium are in an extremely heightened emotional state exhibiting marked paranoia and mounting irrational fear. Abnormal signaling in the brain-heart axis may be a precipitant of a sudden fatal arrhythmia, since hyperdopaminergic signaling in the limbic system can convert extreme emotional stress into autonomic toxicity. The connection between the hyperdopaminergia and chaotic signaling in higher brain autonomic regulatory centers may explain the abrupt loss of autonomic function that leads to sudden unexpected death in victims of the ExDS.