{"id":2307,"date":"2026-10-08T11:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2026-10-08T11:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:04:17","slug":"christa-pike-wakes-up-after-surviving-botched-tennessee-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2307","title":{"rendered":"Christa Pike wakes up after surviving botched Tennessee execution"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Christa Pike, sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, awoke \u201cangry and confused\u201d in a hospital this week with a long recuperation ahead after surviving Tennessee\u2019s \u200bbotched effort to execute her, her lawyers said on Wednesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A week ago, Pike, 50, was taken from the execution chamber to a Nashville hospital, unconscious, critically ill and \u200cwith severe arm injuries after two injections of the caustic barbiturate pentobarbital failed to kill her<\/a> at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.<\/p>\n

As late as Monday, her lawyers believed Pike was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day following the second botched execution in Tennessee<\/a> this year, which has renewed scrutiny of capital punishment in the US<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone, including me, including her team, and including the medical team, Christa woke up \u200band began talking,\u201d Randall Spivey, one of her lawyers, told reporters after a court hearing on Wednesday, where a judge ordered Tennessee officials to preserve syringes and other evidence from \u200bthe botched execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is angry and confused about everything right now,\u201d Spivey said. \u201cShe is very aware that the state tried to execute her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Governor Bill Lee \u2060has suspended all executions for the rest of the year while investigators look into the botched executions of Pike and of Tony Carruthers in May, when prison officials were unable to set up intravenous \u200blines.<\/p>\n

Pike remains very sick and shackled to her hospital bed, facing a long road to recovery, her lawyers said. She cannot swallow or eat, has pneumonia, cannot move her \u201ctremendously swollen\u201d hands or arms, and \u200bit is unclear if she will regain her lost mobility, they said.<\/p>\n

Although she still has \u201ccognitive confusion,\u201d the lawyers said, she has been speaking with those around her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has wanted to know what\u2019s happened, and she\u2019s asked about several people,\u201d Spivey said. \u201cShe\u2019s asked about the victim\u2019s family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pike was sentenced to death for her role as a teenager in the 1995 torture and murder of her 19-year-old schoolmate Colleen Slemmer.<\/p>\n

She is the first person known to have survived a \u201ccompleted \u200bexecution attempt\u201d in the US, her lawyers say, calling it a violation of the Constitution\u2019s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.<\/p>\n

<\/a>A unique case<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Pike\u2019s lawyers are unexpectedly continuing their litigation against state officials, seeking to \u200bpierce the secrecy that normally surrounds execution procedures in Tennessee and other states.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Wednesday, a judge in Davidson County Chancery Court, I\u2019Ashea Myles, agreed to order Tennessee officials to preserve all evidence from the failed execution, \u200cincluding syringes, \u2060drug packaging and lot numbers, catheters, intravenous lines and gurney restraints.<\/p>\n

The all-female execution team requested by Pike used at least seven needles during a grueling ordeal that lasted more than two hours, and one needle was bent 90 degrees when it was pulled out, her lawyers said.<\/p>\n

Myles largely sided with Pike\u2019s lawyers at the end of Wednesday\u2019s hearing, describing the litigation, which began in January in an effort to prevent the scheduled execution, as unusual because no one had anticipated Pike surviving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is unique, to say the least,\u201d Myles said.<\/p>\n

She also ordered the state to preserve internal communications about the attempted execution, including \u200bincident reports, witness accounts and encrypted messages.<\/p>\n

She has \u200byet to rule on a request by \u2060Pike\u2019s lawyers that the Tennessee Department of Correction let them take any residual traces of the execution drugs for chemical analysis.<\/p>\n

The Tennessee Department of Correction has opposed what it says is a \u201cduplicative and unnecessary\u201d preservation order, arguing it is already legally required to preserve all evidence and that it was already \u200bwilling to share most, if not all, of what Pike\u2019s lawyers sought.<\/p>\n

Tennessee and other US states have long struggled to acquire execution drugs. They \u200bcannot be obtained from major \u2060pharmaceutical companies because of a European trade ban on companies that sell products for use in torture or executions.<\/p>\n

Tennessee, like other states, has turned to small, largely unregulated compounding pharmacies to make small batches of the drugs, promising to hide their identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s hearing was about transparency, about why Christa, the courts, the media and the public should not simply take the state\u2019s word about what happened last Wednesday,\u201d Luke Ihnen, another lawyer \u2060for Pike, told \u200breporters after the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

He repeated the demand that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee commute Pike\u2019s sentence to life in prison \u200band never attempt to execute her again. A spokesperson for Lee, who denied a clemency appeal two days before the failed execution, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Pike\u2019s lawyers had sought an alternative to lethal injections, saying her small \u200bveins and related medical conditions made her afraid that something would go wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christa Pike, sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, awoke \u201cangry and confused\u201d in a hospital this week with a long recuperation ahead after surviving Tennessee\u2019s \u200bbotched effort to execute her, her lawyers said on Wednesday. A week ago, Pike, 50, was taken from the execution chamber to a Nashville hospital, unconscious, critically ill and \u200cwith severe arm injuries after two injections of the caustic barbiturate pentobarbital failed to kill her at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. As late as Monday, her lawyers believed Pike was brain dead and that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}