A 50-year-old death row inmate in the United States, Christa Pike, is conscious and speaking after surviving a failed execution attempt in Tennessee last week, according to her lawyers.
Pike remains in hospital receiving critical medical care and is reportedly being kept handcuffed to her hospital bed, her legal team said in a statement.
Pike was scheduled to be executed last Wednesday after being sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. However, the execution went wrong after prison officials administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital.
She was subsequently taken to hospital, where she remained unconscious for several days while doctors worked to clear the chemical from her body.
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Her lawyers now describe her recovery as “medically unprecedented.”
Experts say Pike may be the first known person to survive a lethal injection after the execution drugs were successfully introduced into the body.
Deborah Denno, a criminologist and professor at Fordham Law School, said she was astonished that Pike had regained consciousness and was able to speak.
Denno noted that there have been other cases involving prisoners surviving attempted executions, but in those cases, execution officials had failed to establish intravenous access and did not successfully administer the lethal drugs.
According to her, Pike’s case is different because the execution team apparently succeeded in injecting the drug, yet the procedure did not result in her death.
Doctors treating or advising Pike’s defence team say there are still major uncertainties surrounding her condition.
Anaesthesiologist Dr Joel Zivot said the amount of pentobarbital that actually entered Pike’s bloodstream remains unclear.
He suggested that some of the drug may have spread into the tissue beneath her skin rather than entering her bloodstream normally.
Zivot had previously warned that the quantity of pentobarbital intended for Pike’s execution would ordinarily have been sufficient to cause death if it had entered her bloodstream as expected.
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He also raised concerns about possible brain injury because of the delay before Pike was resuscitated.
Although Pike is now conscious and speaking, doctors say it is too early to determine the full extent of her recovery.
Her lawyers say she has suffered severe damage to her arms and expect her recovery to be lengthy.
Pike’s medical history had already been cited by her attorneys as a potential complication before the execution. They had pointed to thrombocytosis, a blood-clotting condition, as well as her small veins, arguing that the execution could result in unnecessary pain and suffering.
The failed execution has also triggered questions over Tennessee’s death-penalty procedures.
Governor Bill Lee has suspended executions in the state for the remainder of the year, while the head of Tennessee’s prison system has announced plans to resign.
Authorities have not yet announced whether they will make another attempt to execute Pike, nor have they publicly explained exactly what went wrong during last week’s procedure.
Pike’s lawyers are due in court in Nashville, where they are expected to address the case. They also plan to hold a news conference outside the courthouse.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, attacked and killed Slemmer, whom they had met at a job-training camp for troubled teenagers.
The case has now drawn renewed international attention—not only because of Pike’s criminal conviction, but because of the unprecedented circumstances surrounding her failed execution and her unexpected survival.
For now, her medical condition remains uncertain, while questions remain over whether Tennessee authorities will seek another execution attempt.
