Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike may have suffered brain damage after a botched execution in which she raised her head and asked whether the pain she was experiencing was normal.
Pike, 50, was taken to a hospital Wednesday after the Tennessee Department of Corrections administered two doses of the powerful sedative pentobarbital. The drug failed to kill her.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of a classmate. Her attorneys said she was receiving “life-saving measures” at the hospital and warned that she may have sustained a brain injury.
Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine and medical expert retained by Pike’s legal team, told the BBC that the pentobarbital in her bloodstream likely never reached a concentration high enough to stop her breathing and heartbeat.
“It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury,” Zivot said.
Pike’s lawyers attributed the failure to degraded pentobarbital and damaged veins, saying Tennessee officials had dismissed warnings about the risks.
“We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy,” her attorneys said.
After a second dose of the lethal drug failed to stop Pike’s heart, her attorneys filed an emergency request to halt the execution so she could receive medical treatment. District Judge Clifton L. Corker granted the motion.
Pike had been strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution shortly before 7:30 p.m. CDT, about an hour after the US Supreme Court lifted an earlier stay of execution.
Tennessee permits officials to administer a second dose of the execution drug cocktail when the first dose does not produce the intended result. However, state rules do not specify what should happen if the second dose also fails, according to the Associated Press.
Gov. Bill Lee said the state had ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.” Tennessee’s only other scheduled execution this year has been postponed.
If carried out, Pike’s execution would have made her the 19th woman put to death in the United States since 1976. During the same period, 1,663 men have been executed.
“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” Pike’s attorneys said in a statement to USA TODAY.
With Post wires
