Christa Pike Defies Death Again, Wakes Up and Speaks After Botched Execution

By Reporter

NASHVILLE — Christa Pike, the Tennessee death-row inmate who survived a botched lethal-injection execution, has regained consciousness and begun speaking, in what her lawyers described as a medically unprecedented recovery.

Pike, 50, was taken to hospital after Tennessee’s September 30 attempt to execute her failed despite the administration of two doses of pentobarbital.

Her lawyers said on Tuesday that Pike is now conscious and able to speak, although she remains in critical medical care and faces a potentially long recovery.

“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” her attorneys said.

They said Pike suffered severe injuries to both arms during the failed execution, describing them as swollen, burned and blistered.

The latest development represents a dramatic change from the days immediately after the failed execution, when Pike was unconscious, intubated and being kept alive on a ventilator.

Doctors have warned that her long-term prognosis remains uncertain. An expert advising her legal team said her ability to come off the ventilator and speak was encouraging, but cautioned that she remains at serious medical risk.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She was scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries.

Instead, after the lethal injection failed to kill her, she was taken from the prison in an ambulance rather than a hearse.

The unprecedented incident has triggered a major legal and political controversy in Tennessee. Governor Bill Lee suspended further executions in the state for the remainder of the year and ordered a review of what went wrong.

Pike’s lawyers are asking the governor to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment without parole, arguing that attempting another execution after what she endured would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

They are also seeking the preservation of evidence from the failed execution, including records relating to the drugs and procedures used.

For now, however, Pike has not been discharged from hospital, according to the latest available reports. Her lawyers say she remains under critical medical care as doctors continue to assess her recovery.