A US death row inmate remains unconscious and on a ventilator after surviving a failed lethal injection attempt, her lawyers said Friday.
Christa Pike, 50, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Officials administered two doses of pentobarbital, but she survived and was taken to a hospital in the Nashville area.
Her lawyers, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen, said she was being treated for the effects of the drug. “She is being treated for the serious effects of the pentobarbital administered during the execution attempt, including significant injuries to both arms,” they said in a statement.
Media witnesses reported that Pike appeared to remain alive after the first dose and that a second was then given. Witnesses also said they heard her breathing and snoring after the drugs were administered.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed the state’s approved protocol. “The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” the department said. It added that the chemical used had consistently been effective and that the procedure did not allow additional steps beyond those taken.
Governor Bill Lee ordered a third-party review of the incident and halted the state’s next scheduled execution, saying officials needed to determine why the outcome differed from previous cases.
Pike’s lawyers have called for her death sentence to be commuted, citing the severe physical trauma she suffered, and filed an emergency motion seeking to preserve evidence from the failed execution. They had previously warned courts that she had difficulty with intravenous access due to her medical condition and small veins.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps worker. She was 18 at the time of the crime and was convicted in 1996. Her planned execution would have made her the first woman put to death by Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Legal experts noted that the case differs from most previous failed lethal-injection attempts in the United States, which typically involved difficulties establishing an intravenous line before drugs were administered. In this instance the drug was given but the prisoner survived.
The state has not said whether it would seek to schedule another execution after the review.
