Emergency calls following the botched execution attempt of Christa Pike reveal that help was delayed due to confusion among first responders and prison officials. Recordings obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request show that minutes elapsed as officials and responders tried to figure out whether a request for emergency help in the execution chamber was legitimate.
Initial Call and Verification Delay
The initial 911 call came in at 8.40pm on September 30, just over an hour after the attempted lethal injection got under way. But the caller was unable to provide a code to verify the legitimacy of the request.
“Per supervisors here at the DEC (Department of Emergency Communications) we have been informed it is a false call,” a dispatcher says at 9:03 p.m. “There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison.”
It wasn’t until about half an hour after the initial call - close to 9.11pm - that prison officials affirmed it was real and began letting responders through the gates.
Caller Reports Pike Still Alive
The first 911 call, released only as a written transcript, reported that Pike was unconscious and not breathing normally. It came from a person whose name and title were redacted.
The caller told a dispatcher that they were at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where they had tried to execute someone, but she was still alive.
As emergency responders worked to verify the call, they were in touch with representatives of the prison’s Central Control, who said they “would have been the ones to call in” and they “did not make that call”.
Around the same time, a first responder could be heard over the radio saying: “Somebody is outside the gate at the prison telling us that it’s real and demanding us to go in. They say they are some sort of state official. I need somebody to get out to the gate and talk to those people.”
Central Control confirmed the call was legitimate a few minutes later, clearing the way for responders to enter through the gates at about 9.11pm.
Transport to Hospital and Attorney's Call
At 9.34pm, as medics were transporting Pike to a hospital, one asked dispatch to make sure the prison knew where they were taking her. “Just ’cause there’s been so much other confusion, I want to make sure they are aware of this,” the responder said.
The Nashville Department of Emergency Communications released, with some redactions, a batch of dispatchers' audio recordings. Police said the audio from the first 911 call was exempt from public disclosure under state law.
Two subsequent emergency calls were made, including one at 9.08pm by one of Pike’s attorneys, Kelly Gleason.
“My client, Christa Gail Pike, is undergoing a state execution. She has completed the stages of the protocol and last we knew from the attorney who is present, she is still alive and breathing and needs immediate life-saving care,” Gleason said on the call.
