Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike was intubated and on a ventilator on Wednesday night (early Thursday, October 1, UK time), just hours after authorities failed to execute her with two attempts at the lethal injection. Her lawyers have filed court papers detailing the horror moments after she was injected.
The 50-year-old was injected with two lethal doses of pentobarbital on Wednesday but remained alive despite this, and now her lawyers want "any and all evidence" preserved so the botched execution can be fully investigated at length.
Hospital treatment after failed execution
She was then sent to hospital in an ambulance after she failed to die and was being treated at a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer, and now her lawyers want her case and sentence commuted after the failed bid on her life. She remains in hospital, unconscious and intubated on a ventilator as doctors work to save her life and clear the drug from her system completely.
Details of the botched procedure
Court papers say that during the execution, prison officials used an IV line on Pike, trying to gain IV access via seven different needle points. At one point, Pike herself offered guidance of where they could try.
"One needle was bent in a 90-degree angle when it was removed," the filing states. Her lawyers say Pike "could be heard crying, whimpering, and breathing loudly throughout the procedure."
The filing continued: "At one point Ms. Pike stated 'my arm feels like it's about to burst open' and at another asked 'does this happen like that?'"
Lawyers allege IV line failures
Pike's attorneys previously warned that her conditions, including thrombocytosis (a blood-clotting condition) and small veins, meant there was a risk she would experience "unnecessary" pain and suffering during a lethal injection, but the procedure went ahead as planned.
In the latest filings, her lawyers allege that "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". They are requesting that all relevant physical, written and electronic evidence is preserved.
In the court filing, Pike's attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the lethal drug pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.
State review and postponed executions
The stunning failure in Tennessee's execution chamber on Wednesday has left both sides on the death penalty debate demanding answers, with the state's governor also ordering an independent review.
State officials have so far not offered any explanation about what went wrong during the execution attempt, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has demanded a review of the state's execution procedures and indefinitely postponed Pike's execution and another one slated for this year.
Other Republican political leaders in Tennessee said the state should review whether to stop single-drug lethal injections and consider other options to carry out death sentences.
The execution team worked for an hour to administer the lethal drugs, said Pike's defense lawyer Randy Spivey, who counted at least seven needles in her left arm. Neither the initial nor the backup dose of pentobarbital worked. Pike was still snoring when the execution chamber's microphone was cut off more than an hour into the attempt.
