Christa Pike Is Walking After Surviving Tennessee Execution Attempt
Christa Pike, 50, is "up and walking" in hospital just over a week after surviving two doses of pentobarbital in Tennessee's execution chamber, her lawyer said on 8 October. The Guardian
She remains in hospital. She was taken unconscious but alive from the chamber on 30 September. She was declared brain dead on Monday, meaning doctors found no sign of brain activity, before waking and beginning to speak on Tuesday. Attorney Stephen Ferrell said she was able to walk but remained mentally foggy. He said Pike was "up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far."
Ferrell said her arms are very injured and she is not able to use them very much. A lawyer counted seven needles in Pike's left arm after the attempt, one of which appeared bent when pulled from her. Witness accounts say Pike lifted her head from the gurney to say her arms were burning as the drug was administered. Attorney Randy Spivey said on Wednesday that Pike was unable to move her arms and has pneumonia and a blood clot. Her legal team said she remained shackled by her feet and right arm to her hospital bed despite her condition. The team described her as "angry and confused" on Wednesday after regaining consciousness. She could not swallow, her lawyer said. Her attorneys said she continues to receive critical medical care and was nearly taken off life support before waking.
Tennessee had scheduled the execution for 10:00 a.m. CDT on 30 September. Pike remained alive more than an hour after the attempt began. She was taken from the prison by ambulance after surviving the injections. The Department of Correction said Christa Pike #261368 had been transported to an off-site medical facility. Tennessee Department of Correction Her lawyers filed an emergency motion to stay the execution and provide medical care after what they described as a failed injection. A stay is a court order to pause action.
The U.S. Supreme Court had allowed the state to move forward despite warnings from her lawyers about difficulty locating veins. Finding a vein is similar to starting a hospital IV, and her lawyers had warned it would be difficult. Gov. Bill Lee had blocked her request for clemency, the governor's power to stop or reduce a punishment. The Department selected official media witnesses in advance and issued media guidelines under Commissioner Frank Strada.
Pike was 18 and her then-boyfriend was 17 when they killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at Knoxville Job Corps, in Tennessee in 1995. The case involved a beating and stabbing. Pike was sentenced to death at age 18. Tadaryl Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and given a life sentence with the possibility of parole for the killing. Pike was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. The Guardian The state identifies her as the only woman currently serving a sentence on its death row.
The broader context here is procedural as much as medical. A survived lethal-injection protocol with documented trouble getting intravenous access, a brain-death declaration followed by recovery of consciousness and mobility, and continued restraint and critical care create overlapping questions for courts, corrections officials and clinicians. For specialists, the next documents to watch are medical assessments of cognitive impairment and arm injury, any state filing on custodial status and protocol review, and any further judicial action on the emergency motion and clemency denial. None of those answers are in the record yet. The facts so far establish survival, incremental recovery and unresolved legal custody.
