Christa Pike described a botched lethal injection as her “worst nightmare” in a prison recording made just weeks before her failed execution.
Follow live updates on murderer Christa Pike, the first death row inmate in history to survive lethal injection
Pike, 50, said she feared suffering the same fate as Tony Carruthers, another Tennessee death row inmate whose lethal injection was halted in May.
“The concerns I have on our lethal injection method are simply that I do not have good veins, and I’m worried about our physician not being qualified to start a central line on me,” Pike said in the recording, obtained by The New York Times.
“Tony Carruthers lived out my worst nightmare. Detail for detail. And I don’t want to go through that.”
Here’s the latest on the botched execution of Tennessee murderer Christa Pike:
Pike had been expected to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years on Wednesday. Instead, she was taken to hospital after two attempts to administer the lethal drugs failed.
Her lawyers said she was in critical condition and receiving lifesaving treatment, adding that she may have suffered brain damage during the botched execution.
