NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Christa Pike is walking and eating again, one week after surviving Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her attorneys said Thursday.
Pike, 50, lived through two doses of pentobarbital during the state’s effort eight days earlier to carry out her death sentence for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer. The drugs failed to kill her, and her attorneys said her arms were left burned and blistered. She spent the first several days of her hospitalization unconscious and dependent on a ventilator.
Her attorneys said Pike took limited first steps Wednesday and needed assistance while walking Thursday. Movement is also returning to her arms, and she ate for the first time since the execution attempt.
Even so, her lawyers cautioned that her long-term physical recovery—and the future of her death sentence—remain uncertain.
Pike’s recovery and legal future remain uncertain
The failed execution on Sept. 30 has intensified scrutiny of the procedures states use to administer the death penalty. Texas carried out the first U.S. execution since Tennessee’s attempt on Wednesday.
“While her physical recovery has been remarkable, significant questions remain about the long-term effects of what she endured,” Pike’s attorneys said in a statement Thursday. “Christa is dealing with the profound psychological trauma of having survived a failed execution, including the terror, pain and uncertainty of believing she was about to die.”
Pike regained consciousness Tuesday and was able to speak after waking, according to her legal team.
Her attorneys initially said she was confused after coming to. On Thursday, they reported that she was still having difficulty with concentration and memory. Doctors have said it is too soon to determine whether the ordeal caused lasting effects.
It is also unknown whether Tennessee will make another attempt to execute Pike. Her attorneys said they plan to ask Republican Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole.
“She should never be subjected to another execution attempt,” her attorneys said.
The cause of Tennessee’s execution failure remains under review
Following the incident, Lee postponed the state’s only other scheduled execution this year and ordered an investigation into what went wrong. Tennessee’s prison chief resigned after the attempt.
Medical professionals and lethal-injection specialists have questioned whether a malfunction involving the IV line caused the pentobarbital to collect in Pike’s tissue rather than flow into her bloodstream.
In a court filing, Pike’s attorneys wrote that “apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed.”
State officials have not publicly explained what happened.
At the start of the execution, Pike was asked whether she had a final statement and said she was at peace. Roughly five minutes later, she lifted her head and reported pain in her arm. She later appeared to lose consciousness, but witnesses could hear her breathing heavily until media observers were removed from the witness room nearly 90 minutes after the procedure began. An ambulance then transported her to a hospital.
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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama. Associated Press writer Safiyah Riddle in Los Angeles contributed.
