NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Christa Pike, who regained consciousness almost six days after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her, is aware of what happened and “angry and confused,” one of her attorneys said Wednesday.
Pike, 50, survived despite receiving two lethal doses of pentobarbital on Sept. 30. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer.
“She is very aware of what they did to her up to a point,”
attorney Randy Spivey said following a court hearing in Nashville where a judge told the state to save evidence from the execution attempt.
“On Monday night, it was our understanding that Christa was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day,” Spivey said. “But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone ... Christa woke up and began talking.”
Spivey, who was not with Pike when she woke up, said he was told her first words were, “Where am I?” and “Who are you?”
The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the only person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.
Her lawyers said she still can't move her arms or swallow, her prognosis remains unclear and that she has a long road to recovery. Her arms were burned and blistered by the attempted execution and she is handcuffed to the hospital bed, they said.
The failed execution has renewed scrutiny of how states carry out the death penalty, in particular the use of lethal injection. Texas was set to carry out Wednesday the first execution in the U.S. since Tennessee attempted to put Pike to death.
At the hearing Wednesday, Pike's attorneys asked the court to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to save evidence in the case and provide more information about what went wrong. A judge told the state to preserve “anything that was in the actual room.”
“Part of the issue that we are facing is up until yesterday, our client was unconscious, unable to communicate with counsel, unable to communicate with medical providers, and without her consent” a new lawsuit cannot be filed, Luke Ihnen, a federal public defender, told the court.
Pike’s attorneys wanted a court order to require the prison system to preserve information from the attempted execution, including drug lot numbers, needles, execution logs and other information.
Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles indicated that her order to save the evidence would be sweeping, saying the state should maintain recordings, witness accounts, emails along with drugs, syringes, IV lines and other medical items.
The Tennessee Attorney General's Office said a court order was unnecessary. John W. Ayers, assistant attorney general, said evidence from the death chamber already had been collected and logged.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee ordered a review, calling what happened “deeply disturbing.” Lee postponed the state’s only other execution scheduled for this year.
The state's prison chief resigned in the wake of the failed execution.
Medical and lethal injection experts have focused on the possibility that a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue rather than entering her bloodstream. Pike’s attorneys wrote in their court filing that “apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown.”
The attempted execution got underway around 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 30 when Pike was given a chance to make a final statement. About five minutes later, Pike raised her head and said her arm was hurting. At some point she appeared to lose consciousness, but she could be heard audibly breathing until media were escorted from the witness room at 8:53 p.m. An ambulance arrived at the prison at 9:14 p.m. to take Pike to a hospital.
Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who consulted as an expert for Pike’s legal team, said it could be weeks or months before anyone knows exactly what her recovery might look like, and whether her competency could be restored so the state can try again to execute her.
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Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and John Seewer, in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
