NASHVILLE, Tennessee | Death row inmate Christa Pike is unconscious and receiving breathing assistance from a ventilator after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her attorneys said Friday, as state officials face an independent investigation into what went wrong.
Pike, 50, remains in critical condition at a Nashville-area hospital two days after Tennessee administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital. Her attorneys said hospital staff are treating serious injuries to both arms and working to clear the drug from her system.
In an emergency court filing, Pike’s lawyers said the execution team failed to recognize that the intravenous lines were improperly placed or that the veins had failed, allowing some or all of the pentobarbital to enter surrounding tissue rather than the bloodstream. They are asking the court to require the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve evidence from the September 30 execution attempt.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said after the execution that officials followed every step of the state’s established execution protocol and that the chemical used was the one specified in the protocol. The department confirmed that Pike was transported to an outside medical facility.
Witnesses reported hearing Pike breathing and making sounds after the lethal injection was administered. According to AP, her attorneys said she was subjected to at least seven needle attempts before the two doses of pentobarbital were given. Her arms were later described as swollen, burned and blistered.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has ordered an independent review and halted further executions in the state for the remainder of 2026. The Pike case is the second failed execution in Tennessee within four months.
The state has faced execution-related problems before. In April 2022, officials halted the execution of Oscar Smith shortly before it was scheduled after discovering problems involving the lethal-injection drugs. A subsequent independent review released later that year found that Tennessee had failed to comply with parts of its own lethal-injection procedures, including required testing of execution drugs.
Earlier this year, Tennessee also stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after medical personnel were unable to establish the required intravenous access. Gov. Lee ordered that Carruthers not face another execution attempt for at least a year.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her fellow Job Corps participant. Pike was 18 when Slemmer was beaten and killed. She was scheduled to become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than two centuries.
Her execution had been the subject of extensive last-minute litigation. Pike’s attorneys had argued that her medical condition, including thrombocytosis and difficult intravenous access, created a substantial risk of complications during lethal injection. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately allowed Tennessee to proceed with the execution.
The latest court filing by Pike’s attorneys is expected to become part of the investigation into whether execution personnel followed the state’s procedures and whether the difficulties with intravenous access were properly recognized and addressed.
For now, Pike remains hospitalized in critical condition, while Tennessee officials investigate an execution that failed to end her life and has raised renewed questions about the state’s lethal-injection procedures.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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