Pike, 50, remains in hospital and is receiving critical medical care, according to BBC .
US death row inmate Christa Pike is conscious and able to speak after surviving a failed execution attempt in Tennessee last week, her lawyers said. Her lawyers said she is currently handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed and that her long-term prognosis remains unclear.
Frank Strada, the state’s prisons chief, has also announced plans to resign following the incident. The failed execution has triggered widespread criticism and renewed debate over lethal injections and the death penalty. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has suspended executions in the state for the rest of the year. The two lured Slemmer into a wooded area near the University of Tennessee, where Pike attacked her with a box cutter before striking her with a rock. Pike received the death penalty. Pike has never denied her involvement in the killing. It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, or friend. Her lawyers have highlighted her history of abuse and mental health problems, as well as nearly three decades spent in solitary confinement on death row. They are also calling on Governor Lee to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment without parole.
Pike’s lawyers are due to appear in court in Nashville on Wednesday. Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, killed Slemmer in 1995. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid.
Authorities have not yet said whether Tennessee will make another attempt to execute Pike or explained exactly what went wrong during the procedure. Prosecutors said Pike believed Slemmer was trying to take Shipp away from her. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement that was included in her clemency petition.
In a statement on Tuesday, Pike’s lawyers thanked the first responders and hospital staff for treating her with care. However, the execution failed after officials administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital. She was taken to a Nashville hospital in critical condition and remained unconscious for several days while doctors treated her and worked to clear the drug from her system. “Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. “She is the only person known to have survived a complete execution attempt in the US. Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time. We continue to ask the Governor of Tennessee to commute Christa Pike’s sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole,” Pike’s attorneys added. Her medical history reportedly includes thrombocytosis, a condition that can cause excessive blood clotting, as well as small veins. “Most people who get lethal injection die from it. In fact, pretty much everyone, except Christa. However, doctors still do not know how much of the drug entered her system or what its long-term effects will be. In Pike’s case, lethal drugs were administered, but she survived. She was eventually taken to hospital and placed on a ventilator.
Pike was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on September 30 for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” attorneys for Pike said in a statement. Her lawyers said Pike had suffered severe damage to her arms during the attempted execution. One of her attorneys, Randy Spivey, previously said several needles had been used in her left arm during the procedure, with one appearing bent when it was removed. Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiologist advising Pike’s defence team, said her survival was highly unusual. He said the two doses of pentobarbital would normally have been fatal if the drug had entered her bloodstream in the expected manner. So, the fact that she survived it… was unusual,” he told the BBC. One possible explanation, he said, is that the drug may have spread into tissue under Pike’s skin rather than entering her bloodstream properly. Deborah Denno, a criminologist and professor at Fordham Law School who studies executions, said Pike’s case appeared to be unprecedented. She said there had been other instances of prisoners surviving attempted executions, but those cases involved executioners being unable to successfully inject the lethal drugs into a vein. Witnesses to the execution said Pike appeared to struggle for an extended period after the first injection before a second dose was administered.
Pike’s defence team had warned before the execution that officials could have difficulty finding a suitable vein.
