Christa Pike asked “Where am I and who are you?” when she regained consciousness in hospital after surviving Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her, her lawyer has said.
The 50-year-old death row inmate woke on Tuesday, six days after she was given two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Randy Spivey, one of Pike’s lawyers, said he was not in the room when she became conscious but was told of her first words. He said she remained “angry and confused” and was trying to understand what had happened.
“There’s still a lot of cognitive confusion,” Mr Spivey told reporters after a court hearing on Wednesday. Pike had asked about her legal team and the family of Colleen Slemmer, the classmate she was convicted of torturing and killing in 1995.
Christa Pike’s recovery after failed execution
Pike’s legal team said she was aware of what had happened to her “up to a point”, but her prognosis remained uncertain. Her arms were burned and blistered during the attempted lethal injection and she was still handcuffed to her hospital bed, according to her lawyers.
On Thursday, her attorneys said she had taken limited steps with assistance and had eaten for the first time. They added that she continued to experience difficulties with concentration and memory, while doctors said it was too early to assess the long-term effects of the ordeal.
Pike had spent several days unconscious and on a ventilator after the execution attempt. Her lawyers said they had been preparing for the possibility that she was brain-dead and would be removed from life support before she unexpectedly woke and began speaking.
A Nashville judge has ordered the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve evidence from the execution, including recordings, witness accounts, emails, drugs, syringes, intravenous lines and other medical items.
The state’s Department of Correction said it had followed its approved execution protocol and that the lethal injection chemical had previously been effective. Officials have not explained why Pike survived the two doses.
Pike was scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. A federal appeals court briefly halted the execution while considering a last-minute appeal, but the US Supreme Court later allowed it to proceed.
It remains unclear whether Tennessee will make another attempt to execute Pike if she recovers. Her lawyers are calling on Republican Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life imprisonment without parole.
