Tennessee is reviewing its lethal injection process after a botched execution attempt left 50-year-old Christa Pike in critical condition. Pike was receiving “lifesaving care” at a Nashville hospital on Thursday, having survived two shots of the lethal drug pentobarbital, her attorneys said in a press conference. It is the first time in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty that a person received lethal injection drugs and survived, according to the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center.
Pike’s case has drawn scrutiny over the state’s decision to proceed with her execution, despite repeated warnings about its lethal injection protocol from her attorneys, who said she was subjected to “chemical torture.” Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, ordered an independent investigation of the lethal injection process late on Wednesday. Lee also suspended executions in the state till the end of the year, the second moratorium on executions during his time in office due to concerns over the state’s lethal injections.
Pike, convicted of the 1995 murder of then-19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, has been on death row for more than 30 years. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Only 18 women have been executed in the U.S. since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement to media outlets late Wednesday that it “had followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the attorney general’s office.” It described the lethal injection as “consistently effective.” Lee defended the agency, saying it followed protocol. TIME has reached out to the state’s Department of Correction and Pike’s attorneys for comment. Pike’s left arm was pierced by at least seven needles, and her right arm turned purple, he said.
She said her arm felt like it was “about to explode,” her attorneys said. Pike’s attorneys suggested that the drugs may have entered her arm tissue instead of directly into her bloodstream. They described it as “chemical torture.” Pike remained cooperative throughout the multiple execution attempts and tried to help her executioners, her attorneys said.
Please try here,’” Spivey said. Pike’s greatest fear was not of dying but “of a prolonged, painful, traumatic death.” “And that’s what happened,” Ferrell said. Tennessee switched to a one-drug lethal injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital as its execution protocol in December 2024.
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