The physician involved in Christa Pike's botched execution had also served as the physician in a failed execution just a few months earlier, according to court reports.
On May 21, Tony Carruthers was due to be executed, but 30 minutes into the procedure the IV team had still not managed to establish the two peripheral IV sites needed to lethally inject the inmate, according to a court-filed declaration from the inmate's lawyer Maria DeLiberto of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Failed Central Line Attempts
The declaration, a copy of which was obtained by PEOPLE, said that Dr. Fowler was then called into the room to assist. The TDOC Lethal Injection Execution Protocol clearly outlines the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team, and states that the physician is tasked with "determining if the inmate is deceased" and "establishing central line IV if necessary."
Dr. Fowler attempted to insert a central line in two locations, but neither was successful, according to the declaration. Officials eventually decided to call off Carruthers' execution. DeLiberto would later say that by the time the execution was called off, her client was "clearly in pain" and "gutturally groaning," saying: "It hurts, it hurts."
Pike's Botched Execution
Despite Carruthers' failed execution attempt in May, Dr. Fowler was asked to serve in the same capacity just four months later at Pike's botched execution. On September 30, Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital after the US state of Tennessee attempted to execute her for the brutal 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer.
The lethal drugs failed to kill her, instead leaving her arms burned and blistered. According to 911 dispatch recordings, it took 31 minutes for prison officials to confirm that a request for emergency medical assistance was legitimate after confusion between prison staff and first responders delayed the response.
Recovery and Training Concerns
Following the botched execution, Pike spent days unconscious and breathing through a ventilator in intensive care. Doctors feared she was brain-dead. But she defied all odds to wake up and started talking, and was discharged from a Nashville hospital on October 9.
It comes after attorneys representing Tennessee death-row inmates have filed a 2025 deposition from a prison warden who testified that execution teams did not practice inserting IV lines during training sessions. According to the court filing, the warden said the Tennessee Department of Correction commissioner directed that IV lines not be inserted during practices. The warden also testified that the team did not practice or prepare for emergencies, reports WSMV.
