Death row inmate Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder in the US state of Tennessee, has been discharged from the hospital after surviving a botched execution. She was sent back to prison on Saturday, days after regaining the ability to walk and talk after receiving a double lethal injection, her lawyers said.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. Her execution, which was scheduled for September 30, was expected to be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
The inmate did not lose consciousness after two syringes of pentobarbital were administered and complained of pain in her arm instead. She eventually lost consciousness but could be heard breathing heavily and snoring and still had a heartbeat nearly 90 minutes into the execution, prompting an ambulance to take her to the hospital, media reports suggest.
The woman was initially unconscious and on a ventilator. According to The Guardian, she was declared brain dead on Monday before suddenly regaining consciousness on Thursday. One of her lawyers said at the time that she was “up and walking,” though she was “somewhat foggy.”
On Saturday, Pike was returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she had spent 30 years. “She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances,” her lawyers said, adding that she “is continuing to receive medical care at the prison.”
The authorities provided no official explanation as to why Pike survived the execution. The New York Times reported earlier, citing medical experts, that Pike probably survived the procedure because the lethal drug leaked into tissue around the insertion sites instead of entering her bloodstream. The woman’s lawyers had warned that her medical history and small veins increased the risk that she would experience unnecessary pain.
The incident prompted the resignation of Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada. The state’s governor, Bill Lee, ordered an independent review of the botched execution and suspended the only other execution scheduled for this year. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis canceled a planned lethal injection execution in his state as well on Friday.
Pike, then aged 18, was convicted of first-degree murder after she, her boyfriend, and another accomplice lured Slemmer, a fellow student, to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee agricultural campus, where Pike brutally beat her and cut her throat.
Her case is the second botched execution in Tennessee this year. In May, the execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers was halted after officials repeatedly failed to establish intravenous access to administer pentobarbital. The governor granted the man a one-year reprieve and he was returned to death row. The incident raised questions about the state’s lethal injection procedures months before Pike’s execution.