Convicted murderer Christa Pike is in critical condition and receiving life saving care after surviving two lethal injections in Tennessee, her lawyer said Thursday.
Pike, 50, is the first person known to survive lethal injection after drugs entered the body, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
She was scheduled to be executed Wednesday night at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 torture murder of 19 year old Colleen Slemmer.
The execution team administered two full doses of pentobarbital, each intended to be fatal, but Pike remained alive, witnesses said she was breathing loudly and snoring during the more than 90 minute procedure.
Her attorney, Randy Spivey, told reporters that Pike is alive but unconscious and not in a coma, and that doctors have not yet determined her prognosis.
Spivey said at least seven needles were used trying to establish IV access in her left arm alone, with blistering and burning at the injection sites. He said Pike had tried to help the team find a vein, telling them to try higher on her shoulder.
Pike was taken to Vanderbilt University Hospital after the failed attempt.
Governor Bill Lee has halted all remaining executions for the year and ordered a comprehensive third party review of what occurred, calling the incident deeply disturbing.
Spivey said the state’s call for an independent review does not go far enough and called for Lee to commute Pike’s sentence, describing the execution attempt as cruel and torturous and predictable given her medical conditions.
Pike was 18 when she and two others lured Slemmer into the woods in Knoxville and killed her. Sentenced to death in 1996, she would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Her execution warrant expired at midnight Wednesday, meaning the Tennessee Supreme Court would have to set a new date if the state seeks to try again.
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