Christa Pike, who survived a botched execution attempt last week in Tennessee, is now conscious and speaking, her attorneys said Tuesday afternoon.
Tennessee officials attempted to execute Pike, 50, by lethal injection on Sept. 30, but she survived and was rushed to a hospital for lifesaving medical care. The historic failure by state officials has raised questions about Tennessee’s execution protocols and led to the resignation of the state’s prison chief.
“Her recovery is medically unprecedented,” Pike’s attorneys said in a statement. “Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery.”
Pike is still receiving “critical medical care,” said her legal team, Randy Spivey, Kelly Gleason, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen.
They renewed their call for Gov. Bill Lee (R) to commute Pike’s death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The governor denied the clemency request in the days before her scheduled execution.
A spokesperson for Lee did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.
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.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, traveled from Florida to witness the attempted execution last week and told NBC News afterward that she was furious with state officials. Martinez called the botched execution “a mess” and said prison officials failed to properly communicate with her about it.
It remains unclear what exactly went wrong in the Nashville execution chamber on the night Pike was scheduled to die.
A process that normally plays out in minutes dragged on for more than an hour, with witnesses saying Pike continued to move, breathe and snore even after officials intravenously administered two fatal doses of pentobarbital.
Hours later, Lee halted executions in the state and ordered a third-party review into what happened. The incident revived questions about methods of execution nationwide.
The day after the attempted execution, Pike’s attorneys said she was on a ventilator and unconscious. They also reported in a court filing that she had arrived at a Nashville-area hospital with both arms “swollen, burned, and blistered.”
One of Pike’s attorneys, Spivey, who was present for the attempted execution, said he saw Pike’s arm turn purple after the second dose of pentobarbital was injected, and media witnesses said they heard Pike complain about arm pain.
Medical experts had warned before the lethal injection that Pike’s small veins and a blood disorder could lead to a condition known as “IV infiltration,” when fluids leak into surrounding tissue rather than the vein itself.
Despite that, state and federal judges and the U.S. Supreme Court denied requests for alternative execution methods.
Pike’s attorneys said Tuesday that she was “still handcuffed and shackled to the bed” in the hospital, “despite the severe damage she endured to her arms” as a result of the failed execution.
In an email Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction declined to elaborate on Pike’s condition.
Dorinda Carter, the spokeswoman, said Pike remained hospitalized and federal privacy laws prevented the agency “from sharing or confirming her medical information.”
Pike’s attorneys have asked a judge in Davidson County Chancery Court to order state officials to preserve all documents related to the woman’s planned execution. A hearing related to the request is scheduled for Wednesday morning.
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