Christa Pike is in critical condition after a failed execution in Tennessee, her lawyers say

By Rebecca Cohen

Christa Pike, the woman who survived a lethal injection execution attempt in Tennessee Wednesday night, is still alive Thursday afternoon, her lawyers said in a news conference.

Nearly 24 hours after the woman was set to be put to death for a murder she committed when she was 18, Pike’s lawyers, Randy Spivey and Stephen Ferrell, spoke to reporters about the incident.

“I’m haunted by last night,” said Spivey, who was there during the execution attempt.

Pike’s prognosis and current health status are not clear, Spivey said, noting that she is alive but in critical condition and receiving “lifesaving medical care.” Neither lawyer has seen her in the hospital.

Lifesaving care was not administered in the execution chamber when things went wrong Wednesday night, Spivey said, but he said that since curtains were drawn, he could not be sure that was the case. Medical care was administered in an ambulance that was called at 8:50 p.m.

“Last night was not just inefficient; it was cruel and it was torturous,” Spivey said.

At least seven needles were used to administer the lethal injection into Pike’s left arm over the course of an hour, Spivey said, noting that at least one of the needles looked bent when it was pulled from Pike’s arm.

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Where is Christa Pike now?

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Meanwhile, Pike was “continuing to show signs of life” after at least two full doses of the lethal drug, pentobarbital, Spivey said. He noted that the members of the media could hear her “breathe and choke and struggle while the state worked in secrecy.”

Five minutes after the second dose, “it was clear that Miss Pike was still breathing,” Spivey said.

Spivey described venous issues that Pike has had throughout her life, noting problems with typical blood draws. It’s part of the reason she feared this method of execution, and why she requested a different method, the lawyers said.

“I do know that that really was her biggest fear,” Ferrell said. “It was not a fear of dying. It was a fear of a prolonged, painful, traumatic death, and that’s what happened minus the death.”

When the second dosage of pentobarbital was administered, Spivey described seeing Pike’s arm turn purple. He added that there was some blistering and burning around the injection sites.

Spivey said he was given an emergency number for the Tennessee Supreme Court to call if something went wrong with the execution, but that when he called it, it went to voicemail.

Pike’s attorneys have since appealed her execution. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has stayed Pike’s execution until a third-party investigation uncovers what happened Wednesday.

Red and blue emergency lights flashing atop ambulances as they pass through a parking turnstile.

“This is a tragedy. There is no one that wanted what happened last night to happen. It shouldn’t have happened,” Lee said at a news conference Thursday morning.

He declined to give details on Pike’s condition and said he would be hiring a team to look into the circumstances surrounding the failure.

“I do hope he cares, because this is as a citizen of Tennessee, this is something that was done in all of our names,” Spivey said of Lee.

Many questions remain: Was Pike in pain when this was occurring? Will she remember what happened? Will there be long-term damage? Ferrell said he does not have the answers.

“We may never know what all she was suffering through, either because she can’t remember it, she can’t tell it, or it overwhelms her in such a way that, you know, sometimes pain and suffering affects people that way,” he added.

Ferrell said he thinks a “number of factors” could explain the execution failure, but said that based on what medical experts told their team about Pike’s difficult veins, it seems like the IV line may have infiltrated.

This occurs when a misplaced needle deposits the medication into the arm instead of the bloodstream. That, he said, would be consistent with Pike’s complaints that her arm was hurting during the process, and that it felt like it was “about to explode.”

Pike’s conviction stems from a 1995 murder case. Pike, along with two other teenage accomplices, worked together to torture, slash and fatally beat Colleen Slemmer, Knoxville police said at the time. Pike was convicted in Slemmer’s death and sentenced to death; she was on death row for decades.

A number of last-minute efforts to stop the execution were unsuccessful. Pike was set to be the first woman Tennessee has executed in more than 200 years.