Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been discharged from the hospital and moved back to prison, her attorneys said Saturday.
Pike, 50, is back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women's prison where she has been housed for 30 years, her attorneys said in a written statement. "She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery," the statement said.
Pike had been hospitalized since surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her on September 30 for the 1995 torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. At one point she was on a ventilator and her attorneys did not expect her to survive. Then she woke up — and began talking and walking with assistance.
The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong. Medical and lethal injection experts have focused on whether a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream. Pike's attorneys wrote in a court filing that "apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed." A Nashville judge has ordered prison officials to preserve all evidence connected to the failed execution.
Witnesses described a harrowing scene. Shortly after the first dose was administered, Pike said her arm was burning and asked whether it was supposed to feel that way. "Please try up on my shoulder higher," she said. After a second dose she became unconscious but continued breathing and making choking sounds. "It went on for so long," said attorney Randy Spivey, who witnessed the attempt and has called Pike "a survivor."
The failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences. Governor Bill Lee has postponed the state's only other scheduled execution this year and ordered a review of what went wrong. The state's prison chief resigned in the wake of the failed execution.
Pike was sentenced to death for the January 1995 murder of Slemmer, a fellow student in the Knoxville Job Corps program. She was 18 at the time. Her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, received life in prison without parole for his part in the killing.
Her attorneys are not asking for her release. They are asking Governor Lee to commute her death sentence to life without parole. No new execution date has been announced.