exactly, floyd may very well have lived had the police got off his neck once he became unresponsive

being suffocated to death takes a different amount of time depending on how its done. you can suffocate to death by being handcuffed and left on your stomach especially if you are overweight. if an officer is also sitting on you it accelerates the process because your lungs cant expand enough to get enough oxygen or even worse, expel enough carbon dioxide. often times you'll die of cardiac arrest before you actually suffocate though as with floyd and garner because in cases of suffocation the body has time to try and adjust and it does so by overworking the heart