US death row inmate Christa Pike, 50, is conscious and speaking after surviving a failed execution attempt in Tennessee, her lawyers say. Pike was sentenced to death after murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. She survived two failed lethal injections last Wednesday and was taken to hospital, where she remained unconscious for days as medical staff cleared her body of the injected chemical. Her attorneys said in a statement on Tuesday that Pike continues to receive critical medical care while handcuffed in hospital.
Experts and Pike's legal team say her apparent recovery is unprecedented. She is believed to be the only person to survive a lethal injection. Deborah Denno, a criminologist and professor at Fordham Law School, said she was "absolutely astonished" that Pike is conscious and speaking. There were seven other cases where prisoners survived slated executions, but in those cases, executioners were not able to inject anything into the inmates' veins.
Pike's lawyers called her progress "medically unprecedented", and while her prognosis remains unclear, "at a minimum, we expect a long recovery". Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiologist advising Pike's defence team, said on Tuesday that the likelihood of recovering from lethal injection is low. "Most people who get lethal injection die from it," he said. "In fact, pretty well everyone, except Christa."
Authorities have not yet said whether they will try again to execute Pike. They have also not offered an explanation for what went wrong after injecting her with the chemical pentobarbital. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all executions for the rest of the year - and the head of prisons in the state said over the weekend that he plans to resign.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teens. Pike's attorneys are scheduled to appear in court in Nashville on Wednesday. They also plan to hold a news conference outside the court.
Dr Zivot said a possible explanation for Pike's survival is that instead of entering her bloodstream, the pentobarbital was more likely to have spread across the tissue under her skin. Zivot said last week he thought her ending up with a brain injury was "very possible", due to the delays in resuscitating her. He also believed it would take about a week to truly understand her condition and do a neurological exam.
Pike's lawyers previously warned that her medical history and anatomy - 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. They said on Tuesday that she has endured "severe damage" to her arms. In 2022, more than a third of executions across the US were botched or highly problematic, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Key points
- Christa Pike, 50, is the first person to survive a lethal injection.
- Pike's lawyers say she has endured "severe damage" to her arms.
- Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all executions for the rest of the year.
