Christa Pike shouldn’t be breathing anymore. He survived two lethal drug injections in a heartbreaking botched execution by the state of Tennessee, raising questions about how the procedure was carried out and how it went wrong. Nearly 24 hours after Pike was executed for a murder she committed when she was 18, she remains alive but in critical condition and is receiving care, her lawyers said Thursday afternoon. His prognosis is unclear, said Randall Spivey, one of his attorneys. Neither he nor another attorney, Stephen Ferrell, who spoke to reporters, said they had seen her at the hospital. “I’m haunted by last night,” said Spivey, who was there during the attempted execution. Spivey said he counted at least seven needles used on Pike’s left arm alone, “one of which appeared to be bent when it was removed from his arm after a failed attempt.” Tennessee Department of Corrections via AP added that Pike’s right arm had turned purple after he was administered the second round of the drug pentobarbital, a sedative used in Tennessee’s execution protocol. Pike’s attorneys said they also learned of “blisters and burns around the injection sites.” The description sheds additional light on what occurred inside the execution chamber when the execution team attempted to execute Pike, 50, to death. After the chamber curtain opened at 7:26 p.m., a media witness said, Pike complained that “my arm felt like it was about to burst.” Other media witnesses said Pike complained that one spot was “really” kicking so frequently that he hit a sheet that was placed over him. He continued to snore, moan and move after the drugs were supposed to have taken effect, witnesses said. Five minutes after the second dose, “it was clear that Ms. Pike was still breathing,” Spivey said. 00:48 Where is Christa Pike now? 00:0000:00 He said he didn’t see any life-saving care being provided. Pike when he was able to witness the events, but that there was a moment before the witnesses were brought out when no one could see what was happening. Medical care was administered in an ambulance that was called at 8:50 pm to the Nashville prison where the executions are carried out. “Last night was not only inefficient; it was cruel and tortuous,” Spivey said. system, maintaining their breathing and movement rather than going into a deep coma before dying, said Dr. Jonathan Groner, professor emeritus of clinical surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Burning around the injection site could also be evidence that the medication is not being injected correctly into a vein, he added. “I’ve seen partial thickness burns that look red or purple,” Groner said. Ferrell said he believes a “number of factors” could explain the failure of the execution, but he said that was based on what medical experts said. His team on Pike’s difficult veins, it looks like the IV may have infiltrated. This occurs when a poorly placed needle deposits medication into the arm instead of into the bloodstream. That, he said, would be consistent with Pike’s complaints that his arm hurt during the process and that he felt like he was “about to explode.” Spivey described the venous problems Pike has had throughout his life, noting problems with typical blood draws. It’s part of the reason he feared this method of execution and why he requested a different method, lawyers said. “I know that was really his biggest fear,” Ferrell said. “It wasn’t fear of dying. It was fear of a long, painful, traumatic death, and that’s what happened without the death.” Spivey said he was given an emergency number for the Tennessee Supreme Court to call if something went wrong with the execution, but when he called it, it went to voicemail. Pike’s lawyers have since appealed his execution. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee stayed his execution until a third-party investigation uncovers what happened Wednesday. Emergency vehicles at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, after Pike’s execution was stopped Wednesday night. George Walker IV / AP “This is a tragedy. There is no one who 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 about Pike’s condition and said he would hire a team to investigate the circumstances surrounding the failure. Spivey said of Lee: “I hope he cares, because this is as a citizen of Tennessee. This is something that was done in all of our names.” It’s the second time an execution didn’t go as planned in Tennessee this year. Tony Carruthers, convicted of three murders in 1994, was granted a one-year reprieve after executioners in May failed to find a vein for a backup IV. Many questions remain in Pike’s case: Was he in pain when it happened? Will he remember what happened? Will there be long-term damage? Ferrell said he doesn’t have the answers. “We may never know everything she was suffering, either because she can’t remember it, she can’t tell it, or because it overwhelms her in such a way that, you know, sometimes pain and suffering affects people in that way,” he added. Pike’s conviction stems from a 1995 murder case. Pike and two other teenage accomplices worked together to torture, stab and fatally beat Colleen Slemmer, Knoxville police said at the time. Pike was convicted of Slemmer’s death and sentenced to death; He was on death row for decades. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, who traveled to Nashville to witness the execution, told reporters Thursday: “I didn’t get justice for my daughter.” Several last-minute legal efforts to stop Pike’s execution were unsuccessful. Pike was to be the first woman Tennessee executed in more than 200 years.
