Christa Pike remains in constant pain a month after surviving lethal injection attempt

Pike describes ongoing injuries

In her first public remarks since the September 30 attempt, Pike said she had expected to die. Instead, she regained consciousness alone and disoriented in a hospital bed.

Pike, 50, received two doses of pentobarbital. Her lawyers say her arms were burned and blistered, and she spent several days unconscious and on a ventilator. She later returned to the infirmary at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.

Investigation and sentence request

Pike’s lawyers have asked Governor Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment. Lee has said he expects the sentence to remain unless the courts intervene.

Lee ordered an investigation into the failed execution and postponed Tennessee’s remaining lethal injection scheduled for this year. The state’s prison chief resigned. Medical and lethal-injection experts are examining whether an intravenous line problem caused the drug to enter surrounding tissue instead of reaching Pike’s bloodstream.

Crime and victim’s family

Pike described the execution failure as the result of “incompetence,” while also thanking the medical workers who saved her. She said she continued to think about Slemmer’s family and the loss they had suffered.