Christa Pike has been discharged from hospital and returned to a Tennessee women’s prison after surviving an attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her attorneys said.
The 50-year-old is back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she had been held for 30 years. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison while her recovery is monitored.
“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances,” her attorneys said in a written statement.
Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during the execution attempt on September 30. She had been sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Her attorneys initially did not expect her to survive. She was placed on a ventilator but later woke up and began talking and walking with assistance.
The Death Penalty Information Center said Pike was the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.
Questions over Tennessee execution procedure
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not explained what went wrong. Medical and lethal injection experts have questioned whether an issue with the intravenous line caused the drug to collect in Pike’s tissue rather than enter her bloodstream.
In a court filing, Pike’s attorneys said: “apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed.”
As the procedure began, Pike was asked whether she had a final statement and spoke of being at peace. About five minutes later, she raised her head and said her arm hurt.
She later appeared to lose consciousness, although she could be heard breathing heavily. Media witnesses were escorted from the witness room nearly 90 minutes into the execution, and an ambulance took Pike to hospital.
The failed execution prompted renewed scrutiny of Tennessee’s death penalty procedures. Governor Bill Lee postponed the state’s only other scheduled execution this year and ordered a review, while the state’s prison chief resigned.
