Christa Pike, the death row inmate who survived a botched lethal injection in Tennessee, has woken up and asked her lawyer, “Where am I and who are you?” after days unconscious. The 50-year-old, convicted of the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer, received two massive doses of pentobarbital that failed to kill her, instead leaving her arms burned and blistered.
Recovery and first steps
Following the failed execution, Pike spent days in intensive care on a ventilator. Doctors were concerned she might be brain-dead, but she woke on Tuesday and began talking. By Thursday, her lawyers confirmed she was making a slow recovery: eating for the first time, regaining mobility in her arms, and taking her first steps with assistance.
Her attorney, Randy Spivey, told reporters, “I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning, but what we do know is that Christa has a long road to recovery.” He added that her first steps on Wednesday were “limited” and she required assistance while walking on Thursday.
Legal and physical uncertainty
Her legal team warned that significant uncertainty still surrounds her physical health and her legal future. Spivey described “extraordinary” swelling to her hands, which he said looked like “if you tried to blow up a surgical glove.” Pike also woke with a blood clot and pneumonia, and could not swallow, eat, or move her badly swollen arms.
“I don't know what function she will regain,” he said. “We do know that there is a long road ahead.” Her attorneys said in a Thursday statement: “While her physical recovery has been remarkable, significant questions remain about the long-term effects of what she endured. Christa is dealing with the profound psychological trauma of having survived a failed execution, including the terror, pain and uncertainty of believing she was about to die.”
Victim’s mother and state response
The victim’s mother, May Martinez, told US news station WBIR she always had a gut feeling Pike would survive. She doubts Tennessee will make a second attempt to execute her. Asked what she wanted to happen next, Martinez said, “It doesn’t matter what I think. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”
The state’s prison chief resigned after the execution attempt. Spivey said the botched killing was “foreseeable and foreseen,” claiming Tennessee was warned ahead of time about what could transpire. He explained: “What happened to Christa is exactly what the state was warned would happen, and there are so many questions that need to be answered, not by Christa — but by the state of Tennessee. One of those questions has to be, 'how much suffering is enough?'”
Shackles and next steps
Pike remains confined to her bed at the Tennessee hospital, shackled by both hands and feet. Attorney Luke Ihnen told Judge l’Ashea Myles that medical personnel have requested her hand be unshackled given the extensive damage to her arms and hands. Her attorneys say they will urge Republican Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without parole. “She should never be subjected to another execution attempt,” they said in their statement.
Lee has postponed the state’s only other execution due this year and ordered a review into why this one failed. Experts have focused on whether a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream.
