Christa Pike is unconscious and on a ventilator after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her, according to an emergency court filing by her lawyers.
The 50-year-old remains in critical condition after the state administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital on Wednesday night. Hospital staff are trying to save her life and remove the drug from her system, her lawyers said.
The filing, submitted on Friday, seeks an order requiring Tennessee’s Department of Correction to preserve evidence relating to the botched execution. Pike has suffered significant injuries to both arms, her lawyers said.
They alleged that the execution team failed to realise that the intravenous lines had not been correctly placed and that the veins had “blown”, meaning the pentobarbital was entering her body either wholly or in part.
“At no point did any member of the execution team realise that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike’s body,” the lawyers said in the filing.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has said the execution followed the state’s established protocol. It was the second botched execution in the state this year, and Mr Lee has halted further executions for the remainder of 2026 while an independent review is carried out.
Pike’s lawyers had warned the state and courts before the execution that difficulties with intravenous access could affect the administration of the drug.
Pike was convicted of killing her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in 1995, when Pike was 18. She had been due to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
