Christa Pike speaks for first time since surviving botched Tennessee execution: 'I am in constant pain'
Christa Pike has released her first public statement a month after surviving two lethal-injection doses in Tennessee, saying she remains in constant pain as the state reviews what went wrong.
Christa Pike, the Tennessee death-row prisoner who survived an attempt to execute her by lethal injection last month, has spoken publicly for the first time since that night, saying she remains in constant physical and mental pain and is still trying to heal.
Pike, 50, released her first statement on Friday through her legal team, one month after the failed execution on 30 September at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. She had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
"There hasn't been a moment since that night when I haven't been in pain," she said. "My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn't just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul."
She added that she had walked into the execution chamber prepared to die. "I had not contemplated life beyond that night, and I'm deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position," she said, adding that she is recovering and feels she is getting stronger.
Pike has spent more than 30 years in prison for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom she had met at a job-training camp for low-income young people. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing, which was carried out with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.
On the day of the scheduled execution, a last-minute legal battle delayed proceedings until the evening. According to accounts from media witnesses and her lawyers, staff struggled for more than an hour to establish intravenous lines, using at least seven needles, before Pike was given a first dose of the drug pentobarbital at about 7:40 p.m., followed by a second dose at about 8 p.m.
After an hour of waiting, the attempt was stopped and emergency services were called at about 8:40 p.m. Pike was taken to hospital in critical condition, where she did not regain consciousness for days. Her lawyers later said she suffered pneumonia, significant swelling in her arms, and difficulty swallowing, and that the drug may have leaked into surrounding tissue rather than circulating properly through her bloodstream.
She was discharged from hospital at the end of last month and, since 10 October, has been back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, where she continues to receive medical care in the prison infirmary. In her statement she described being largely isolated in the prison medical ward, away from other people, and said much of what she is experiencing repeats the isolation of 28 years she previously spent in solitary confinement.
The failed execution, the second to go wrong in Tennessee this year, has thrown the state's lethal-injection procedures into national scrutiny. Governor Bill Lee paused all executions for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review to determine exactly what occurred, and the state's corrections commissioner, Frank Strada, resigned.
Pike's lawyers are now seeking to have her sentence commuted to life imprisonment without parole, pointing to her age at the time of the offence, her reported bipolar disorder and a history of sexual abuse. Governor Lee has said he suspects her sentence will remain the same unless determined otherwise by the courts, and it remains unclear whether the state will attempt a second execution. Pike is thought to be the only person ever to survive an execution attempt by lethal injection, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and her case is now expected to shape a wider debate in the United States about the reliability and humanity of the death penalty.
