Christa Pike 'angry and confused' after failed execution, lawyers say

Christa Pike, the convicted murderer sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, woke up angry and confused after surviving a botched lethal injection on September 30 in Tennessee, her lawyers said. During a press conference, attorney Randy Spivey recalled Pike’s first words upon regaining consciousness: “Where americium I?” and “Who are you?” Spivey explained that Pike had survived two rounds of pentobarbital administered by the execution team. Experts and her legal team called her recovery unprecedented, noting that no other U.S. inmate is known to have survived a lethal injection. On Wednesday, a Tennessee tribunal ordered the state to preserve all evidence related to the failed execution. Pike, 50, remains hospitalized under medical observation, with her hands and feet restrained to the bed. Her lawyers said both arms are “tremendously swollen,” she has a blood clot in one arm, pneumonia, and is unable to swallow. Spivey said Pike had helped the execution crew locate a vein in her arm and remained polite while the drugs were injected. After the procedure, she awoke with a tube down her throat, surrounded by unfamiliar people. “We don’t know the toll each of this will take on her mental health,” Spivey said, adding that she was left “angry and confused” by the ordeal. He noted that the legal team had believed for days that Pike was brain dead and expected her to be taken off life support at any moment. Instead, in what he described as a “shock to everyone,” she began speaking on Tuesday, though she could recall only limited details of the execution attempt. Luke Ihnen, another of Pike’s lawyers, told Judge Chancellor I’Ashea Myles that “up until yesterday our lawsuit was unconscious, and incapable to communicate,” and that Pike is now “speaking limitedly.” Tennessee Assistant Attorney General Will Ayers warned the court about the “unusual procedural presumption here,” arguing that an emergency hearing was unnecessary because the state is already required to preserve evidence. Nevertheless, Judge Myles ordered that “anything that was successful the existent country needs to be preserved and maintained,” specifying that IV lines, syringes, waste, packaging, inserts and labels must be kept. She also demanded documentation of Pike’s mental health before, during and after the September 30 execution attempt. The preserved material could form the basis of a future lawsuit against the state.