Execution Survivor Christa Pike Now 'Conscious and Speaking' as Lawyers Race to Preserve Evidence
A week after Tennessee's lethal injection attempt failed to kill her, attorneys for Christa Pike say she is talking and receiving care — and they're back in court fighting to lock down evidence from the botched procedure.
Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived her own execution last week, is now conscious, speaking and receiving ongoing medical care, her attorneys said — a situation they describe as "unprecedented."
Pike was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 30 at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, a crime she committed at age 18. Prison officials administered two separate doses of pentobarbital, but according to media witnesses, the procedure was halted when staff determined she had not lost consciousness and still had a heartbeat. One witness reported hearing her snoring loudly roughly an hour after the process began, according to CBS News.
'A Long Recovery'
Pike's attorneys say she sustained significant injuries to her arms during the failed procedure and remained handcuffed and shackled afterward. They believe problems with her IV lines may have caused the pentobarbital to flow into surrounding tissue rather than her bloodstream, preventing the drug from working as intended.
HER PROGNOSIS REMAINS UNCLEAR, AND AT A MINIMUM WE EXPECT A LONG RECOVERY
That assessment from Pike's legal team, relayed to NBC News, underscores how unusual the situation remains more than a week after the failed execution. Tennessee has since paused further executions while officials examine what went wrong, according to CBS News' reporting on the case, which would have made Pike the first woman executed by the state in roughly 200 years.
Back in Court
Pike's attorneys are now seeking a court order to preserve evidence and records from the botched procedure, including the IV equipment and staff logs, as they push for an independent review of exactly what went wrong inside the death chamber. The case has drawn renewed national attention to lethal injection protocols, with defense attorneys in at least one other state's death penalty case already citing Pike's ordeal in their own court filings.
No new execution date has been set for Pike. Her legal team says the focus for now is her medical care and ensuring the record of what happened isn't lost before any future proceedings.