Christa Pike has been discharged from hospital and returned to Tennessee’s Deborah K Johnson Rehabilitation Center after surviving a failed lethal injection on death row.
The 50-year-old was taken to hospital after two doses of pentobarbital were administered during her scheduled execution on September 30. Her lawyers said the drugs appeared to have been injected into her arms rather than properly entering her veins, leaving them burned and blistered.
In a statement, her legal team said: “She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery.”
Pike was unconscious and on a ventilator during the first few days of her hospitalisation, according to her lawyers. She took her first steps on Wednesday, although they were limited, and needed help walking the following day.
She has also begun to regain movement in her arms and was able to eat for the first time earlier this week.
Judge orders evidence from failed execution to be preserved
A judge has ordered Tennessee officials to preserve all evidence connected to the execution attempt.
Judge I’Ashea Myles said: “This case is unique to say the least. Take special care not to lose, misplace, or accidentally delete any information pertinent to this investigation.”
Luke Ihnen, one of Pike’s lawyers, had asked for the shackles on her hospital bed to be removed and for her to have access to a telephone. He told the court that she had been unable to communicate with her lawyers or medical providers while unconscious.
Assistant Attorney General John Ayers said there was no pending execution order against Pike. He also said the Department of Corrections had preserved log books, observation logs, medical waste, products and electrocardiogram readouts.
Mr Ayers said it was his understanding that the intravenous lines had been cut and that parts of them might still have been attached to Pike when she was taken to hospital. He argued it would be premature to order the preservation of further evidence before lawyers had discussed what material was available.
Pike’s lawyers have suggested that the intravenous lines were incorrectly placed or that her veins had “blown”, allowing the drug to collect in tissue instead of entering her bloodstream. Medical and lethal-injection experts have focused on the same possibility.
The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the first person to survive after receiving lethal-injection drugs during an execution.
Her aunt, Carrie Ross, said the aftermath had been distressing for the family. “It’s been up, down, up, down. I have cried more tears in the last week than I’ve cried in my whole life,” she said. “This whole week has been a blur.”
Pike has been imprisoned since 1995 for the beating and stabbing death of her classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, at a job training camp.
Prosecutors said Pike, then 18, feared Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and lured her into a wooded area. They said Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a piece of asphalt, while Shipp carved a pentagram into the victim’s body.
Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only person involved to receive a death sentence.
It remains unclear how state officials will proceed. Pike’s lawyers have argued that she has suffered enough and want the governor to commute her sentence.
