Christa Pike, Who Survived Her Own Execution, Now Up and Walking in Hospital

Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived a botched lethal injection last week, is now able to walk short distances around her hospital room, her legal team says.

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture-murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a crime she committed with her boyfriend when she was 18. She was set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Instead, on Sept. 30, she became the first person in U.S. history known to have survived a lethal injection.

State corrections officials administered two doses of pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Pike’s legal team says at least seven needles were used during the procedure, including one they say came out of her arm bent at a 90-degree angle. She was rushed to a hospital unconscious and in critical condition.

She remained unresponsive for days before waking on Tuesday. Her attorney, Stephen Ferrell, told the BBC she is now moving around her room under her own power, though she remains badly hurt.

“What’s been described to me is that physically there’s quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured and she’s not able to use them very much,” Ferrell said. “She is up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far.”

Ferrell described her mental state as mixed. She is lucid enough to follow conversation but still struggles to hold a thought.

“Good that she is fairly with it, but she’s also somewhat foggy. She can lose her train of thought really easily and forgets where she’s going,” he said.

Another attorney, Randall Spivey, said Pike is fully aware of what happened to her and is reacting accordingly.

“She is angry and confused about everything right now. She is very aware that the state tried to execute her,” Spivey told reporters Wednesday, after a Davidson County court hearing at which a judge ordered Tennessee officials to preserve the syringes and other evidence from the execution attempt.

Spivey said Pike remains handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed in critical care despite the severity of her injuries.

“Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery.”

Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist advising Pike’s lawyers, has said she is able to communicate in a “basic way” but at one point mistakenly believed it was still September. Whether she has suffered permanent brain damage from the ordeal is not yet known.

It remains to be seen whether Tennessee will attempt to carry out the execution a second time, or what legal consequences may follow from a failed lethal injection carried out by state officials.