Christa Pike Breaks Silence a Month After Surviving Tennessee's Failed Execution, Saying She Is in Pain
In her first statement since the Sept. 30 attempt, the 50-year-old says she did not expect to survive and is 'trying to heal, one day at a time.' Tennessee has paused executions through year's end.
Christa Pike, the Tennessee inmate who survived a lethal injection on Sept. 30, has issued her first public statement since the failed execution, saying she has been in pain every moment since she woke up in a hospital. The statement, which she dictated to her lawyers, was released exactly one month after the attempt.
Pike, 50, said she feels pain in her body, arms, hands and throat, along with emotional and spiritual pain, and that she still struggles to speak. She said she did not expect to survive and does not know why she did. "Trying to heal, one day at a time," she said of her recovery, and she thanked supporters for their love and prayers.
She was given two doses of a lethal injection drug, later identified as pentobarbital. A media witness reported hearing her snoring about an hour after the procedure began, and she was then taken by ambulance to a hospital. Her lawyers said she had pneumonia and a blood clot, could not swallow, and could not move her arms or hands when she regained consciousness. She began walking soon after and was returned to prison for further treatment on Oct. 10.
Court documents cited by the Associated Press suggest her veins may have ruptured before the pentobarbital was injected. The execution team reportedly used about 10 needles and tried several IV sites on both arms. The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the only known person in the United States to survive an execution attempt in which the drug was administered.
Earlier this year, Tennessee could not execute Tony Carruthers after more than an hour of failed attempts to establish an IV line, and the governor granted him a one-year reprieve. CBS News reviewed the state's lethal injection protocols going back to 2007 and found they became increasingly vague over time.
Gov. Bill Lee has paused executions in Tennessee through the end of the year. Asked about Pike's next steps, he said he expects her sentence to remain the same unless the courts decide otherwise. On Oct. 7, a court agreed to preserve all evidence related to the failed execution. A follow-up hearing scheduled for Oct. 23 was canceled while the judge considers several motions. Her lawyer, Steve Ferrell, has urged the governor to commute her sentence, saying the least that could happen is taking death off the table.
Pike was convicted in 1995 of murdering Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate, when Pike was 18. Court filings state that she tortured and killed Slemmer on the University of Tennessee campus with the help of her boyfriend and a friend. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from October found that about one-third of Americans support a second execution attempt.
