Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed after her failed Tennessee execution

Delayed help from the execution chamber

Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed by confusion between first responders and Tennessee prison officials after her failed lethal injection on Wednesday, 30 September, according to 911 dispatch recordings reviewed by the Associated Press. The first call came in at 8:40 p.m., but prison officials did not confirm that the request was legitimate until 9:11 p.m. At 9:03 p.m., an unidentified person on the recording said officials had been told it was a false call and that no medical help was needed at Riverbend Prison. Four minutes later, a responder reported that someone at the prison gate insisted the emergency was real, claimed to be a state official and urged the crew to go to the gate.

Pike's condition

Pike, 50, was taken from the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday evening and moved to a medical unit. She had survived two doses of pentobarbital, the drug Tennessee used to execute her for the 1995 killing of a 19-year-old classmate. She was at one point put on a ventilator, and her lawyers initially did not expect her to survive. She later woke, regained the ability to speak and could walk with support. Her attorneys said in a statement on Saturday, 10 October, that she had been discharged from hospital and returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women's prison where she was held for 30 years.

Witness accounts

Kim Chandler, an Associated Press journalist who witnessed the procedure, said Pike appeared conscious at the start, looked around several times and asked staff whether the sensations she felt were normal. She later began to snore, and witnesses waited about an hour in the observation area before being told to leave. Chandler reported that Pike was snoring loudly and was clearly still alive when the journalists left. On Thursday, 8 October, her lawyer Randy Spivey said she was in critical condition and receiving care to save her life. Spivey also said at least seven needles were used in her left arm alone, and that one appeared bent when withdrawn after a failed attempt to insert the line.

Legal fight over a second attempt

About a week after the attempt, her lawyers appeared in court in Nashville to begin a challenge to any new attempt to execute her. Her attorney Luke Ihnen said the state has made no promises that she will not be executed in future. Whether Tennessee tries again remains open, and the answer could come from a court ruling or from intervention by the governor, who will take office in January. Experts told CNN that she must first be found competent, meaning aware of the sentence and of why it is being carried out. If she is not found incompetent, her lawyers may argue that a second attempt would breach protections against double jeopardy and cruel and unusual punishment. Her lawyers' statement on Thursday, 8 October, said she is struggling with profound psychological trauma, and that establishing whether she has lasting cognitive damage could take months.

Medical uncertainty

Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiology and surgery professor at Emory University School of Medicine who has been retained by Pike's legal team, gave The Independent his assessment of her condition.

She has no memory of the execution itself.

Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, said in a CNN interview before Pike was discharged that the extent of any brain damage was not known. Pike has problems with memory. Her attorneys said she is continuing to receive medical care at the prison and that they will track her recovery.