Confusion and skepticism on the part of emergency personnel delayed medical aid for Christa Pike after last month’s botched execution attempt of the death row inmate, 911 call recordings show.
Emergency dispatchers and first responders initially appeared unsure whether the calls for help were authentic, according to the recordings, obtained by The Washington Post. At least twice, dispatchers said they were told by prison staff that the calls were not legitimate.
At least a half-hour passed between an initial 911 call and when emergency responders were let into the Tennessee prison to administer aid to Pike.
The first call came at 8:40 p.m. local time on Sept. 30, about an hour after officials began trying to execute Pike, 50, by injections of pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
In that call, a worker inside the prison reports that a person in the execution chamber is unconscious but “not yet deceased” after being administered 10 grams of pentobarbital. When the dispatcher asked for a verification code needed to verify emergency calls from a prison, however, the worker was not able to provide one, according to a transcript of the call.
Recordings show that over the next half hour, different dispatchers called police and corrections officials to try to verify the legitimacy of the request from the prison. At 9:03 p.m., one dispatcher says that per supervisors at the Tennessee Department of Correction, it is a “false call” and “there is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend prison.”
At 9 p.m., another dispatcher calls the prison and asks to confirm reports of a “failed execution at you guys’ facility.”
After some back-and-forth, someone at the prison tells the dispatcher, “I’m being told that nobody from our facility called you, so there’s not really anything to speak of at the moment.”
At 9:08 p.m., one of Pike’s attorneys, Kelly Gleason, calls and informs a dispatcher that her client is “undergoing a state execution” but, after receiving two intravenous doses of pentobarbital, is “still alive and breathing, and needs immediate lifesaving care.”
In the final call at 9:11 p.m., a dispatcher calls the prison, saying a fire engine and medics are staged nearby but need an escort inside.
The dispatcher also tells the official on the other end: “Just so you guys are aware, the defense attorney by the name of Kelly Gleason is calling and asking us for an update. So it’s escalating.”
“There’s someone at the gate telling them to come in, that they need the ambulance, and this is an actual thing that is happening,” the dispatcher says.
Shortly after the final call, Pike was taken to a hospital for lifesaving medical care.
The Tennessee Department of Correction and Pike’s attorneys did not immediately respond Tuesday to requests for comment on the 911 calls.
Hours after the botched execution, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) halted all executions in the state for the rest of the year and ordered a third-party review into what happened. The incident revived questions about methods of execution nationwide and led to the resignation of Tennessee’s prison chief.
Pike regained consciousness and the ability to talk last week, according to her attorneys. She was discharged from the hospital over the weekend and moved to a rehabilitation center at the prison where she was housed for more than 30 years.
“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,” Pike’s attorneys said in a statement Saturday.
A jury sentenced Pike to death decades ago for her role in killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Pike and two other teens — her boyfriend and another girl — lured Slemmer into a wooded area in Knoxville, where they beat, tortured and killed her. The teenagers knew each other through the Knoxville Job Corps, and prosecutors argued that Pike believed Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend.
Pike admitted to hitting the girl in the head with asphalt, cutting her throat and taking a piece of her skull as a souvenir, court documents said.
Katie Mettler and Aiofe Walsh contributed to this report.
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