Christa Pike conscious after failed Tennessee execution, lawyers say

Christa Pike is conscious and able to speak after surviving Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyers said Tuesday. She remains in intensive care and is still receiving critical medical treatment, according to the statement from her legal team. Pike was taken to hospital after prison officials administered two doses of pentobarbital during the September 30 procedure at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Her lawyers said the drug entered tissue beneath the skin after attempts to establish intravenous access failed, leaving both arms swollen, burned and blistered. The improvement marks the first public indication that Pike’s condition has changed since her lawyers said Friday that she was unconscious, critically ill and dependent on a ventilator. Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiology and surgery professor who advised the defence, said she had since been taken off the ventilator and could speak, but warned that she remained at serious medical risk.

“Her prognosis remains unclear,” Pike’s lawyers said, adding that they expected a long recovery. They also said she remained handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed. The attorneys thanked emergency responders and medical staff, saying those treating Pike had provided exceptional care.

The failed procedure has prompted a legal and administrative response. Pike’s lawyers are due in Davidson County Chancery Court on Wednesday, where they intend to seek an order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve evidence, including drug lot numbers, records and other information connected with the attempt. They are ultimately seeking to have Pike’s death sentence changed to life imprisonment without parole.

Governor Bill Lee rejected a clemency petition shortly before the scheduled execution, and has ordered a suspension of scheduled executions in Tennessee for the remainder of the year while an independent review takes place. The state Department of Correction initially said it had followed its lawful, established execution protocol. But Frank Strada, the agency’s commissioner, has resigned and is due to leave his position this month, according to the governor’s announcement.

The reports do not establish what caused the intravenous access problems or whether any protocol was breached. Pike was sentenced to death for her role in the 1995 torture and killing of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 at the time.

Her defence had argued that her sentence failed to account adequately for childhood sexual abuse, neglect and untreated mental illness. The Death Penalty Information Center said Pike is believed to be the first person in the United States known to survive after lethal execution drugs were administered.