Christa Pike is alive and in critical condition after a failed lethal injection in Nashville, Tennessee, her lawyers have said, as they called on Governor Bill Lee to commute her death sentence.
The 50-year-old received lifesaving treatment after prison staff administered at least seven needles during the attempted execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, according to her legal team.
Randy Spivey, of the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender, said Pike’s prognosis remained unclear. He told a press conference that she had blisters and was experiencing burning around the injection site.
“Christa is alive. We don’t have much of a sense of her prognosis or an update on her health,” Mr Spivey said.
He alleged that medical staff struggled to establish an intravenous line, with one syringe reportedly bending as it was removed from Pike’s arm. Her lawyers said she tried to help direct the team towards veins near her shoulder.
Mr Spivey described the procedure as “cruel” and “torturous”, saying Pike remained cooperative, sang and blessed people in the witnesses’ room after the first dose had been administered.
She was also said to have thanked the medical team and offered suggestions about where they could try another vein. Her spiritual adviser was present in the death chamber but was removed at points, her lawyer said.
Execution witnesses saw Pike strapped to a gurney when the curtains were opened at 7.27pm on Wednesday. In her final statement, she said: “I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love.”
She described herself as being at peace, but remained awake after two syringes of pentobarbital were administered. At one point, she raised her head and asked prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did.
By 8.26pm, witnesses reported that the second dose had been given. Pike was heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was switched off at 8.53pm, after which witnesses were escorted from the area.
Her attorneys said she was later taken by ambulance to hospital. Mr Spivey said communication with Pike had been difficult for about 40 minutes after the first dose, and that he did not receive confirmation that an ambulance was on its way until 8.50pm.
Pike has spent 30 years on death row after being convicted of the 1995 murder of her Knoxville Jobs Corps classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Her lawyers said they expected a further update on her condition within 24 hours and hoped she would recover sufficiently to discuss her next steps.
“We want to think this through, and we want to make sure that Christa recovers and has some input in what she wants,” said Stephen Ferrell, of Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee.
