Death row inmate awake after failed execution in US

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike is awake and speaking at a hospital, her lawyers said on Tuesday, six days after the state’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection left her unconscious and on a ventilator.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital as executioners attempted to put her to death on Wednesday last week for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike is believed to be the only person to survive after lethal injection drugs were administered.

Pike’s attorneys are seeking more information about what went wrong from the Tennessee Department of Correction.

Death row inmate Christa Pike is pictured in a 2023 Tennessee Department of Correction booking photograph.

Photo: Tennessee Department of Correction via Reuters

“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” attorneys for Pike said in a statement.

Pike’s prognosis remains unclear and, at a minimum, she faces a lengthy recovery, the attorneys said.

They said Pike’s arms were burned and blistered after the attempted lethal injection and that she is handcuffed to the hospital bed.

Pike’s attorneys are seeking a court order to require the prison system to preserve information from the attempted execution including drug lot numbers, needles, execution logs and other information.

Attorneys with the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office wrote in a Tuesday court filing that the court order is unnecessary because the prison system is “obliged to maintain this evidence in other cases and must assure it is preserved.”

They said state officials have taken “the necessary steps to obtain medical care for Pike and ascertain what occurred.”

Republican Governor Bill Lee called what happened “deeply disturbing” and ordered a “comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.”

The governor postponed the state’s only other execution scheduled for this year.