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Utah prison inmate Michael Valent faced ``less than 1 chance in 100,000'' of suffering the pulmonary embolism that killed him after he spent 16 hours strapped in a restraint chair, an expert witness asserts.
Valent's risk of developing the blood clots that traveled to his lungs was similar to the unproven ``economy class syndrome'' -- the slight risk said to be faced by airline passengers on flights to Hawaii, said C. Gregory Elliott, chief of the pulmonary division of LDS Hospital.
Elliott's analysis is one of two expert reports filed in U.S. District Court to rebut a civil-rights lawsuit filed by Valent's mother, Angela Armstrong, and her attorney, Ross Anderson.
The suit names former Department of Corrections Director Lane McCotter, prison physician Robert Jones, psychiatrist David Egli, nurse Diane Jeffs and the maker of the chair, AEDEC International Inc.
Valent, 29, a...