Christa Pike hospitalized after failed execution attempt
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Death row inmate Christa Pike was still alive after getting two rounds of lethal injection drugs at a Nashville prison Wednesday night, her attorneys said in court filings.
- Media witnesses who watched the lethal injection process said Pike was still breathing when the warden told them to leave at 8:53pm.
- An ambulance left the prison grounds while they were describing their experience at a press conference outside. Sirens wailed while they talked.
What they're saying: "We have a lot of questions about what we saw and what we did not see," said reporter John North of the Knoxville news station WBIR.
- "We have a lot of questions, and the Department of Correction has a lot of answers that it needs to provide to the public about what happened here."
Between the lines: All of the media witnesses said staff pulled curtains to block their view of the lethal injection at multiple points. The state is required by law to allow a group of reporters to watch the executions.
"I cannot emphasize enough how much of whatever just happened happened behind a closed curtain," Nashville Banner reporter Steven Hale said.
"Nothing about today was normal," said WKRN's Tori Gessner, who has witnessed multiple executions in Tennessee. "The court delay was just the tip of the iceberg."
Catch up quick: The execution process was in limbo for much of the day. An hour before the scheduled execution time of 10am, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered "a short stay of execution" so it could consider an ongoing legal battle between Pike's attorneys and the state.
- The Tennessee attorney general's office quickly asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and allow the execution to proceed.
- Then, just before 6pm, the high court reversed the stay and cleared the way for the execution in a two-sentence order.
- The state moved forward with its lethal injection protocol and soon afterward the media witnesses were brought to a room alongside the execution chamber.
What happened: Media witnesses said the curtain into the chamber opened around 7:27pm, after they had already spent roughly 45 minutes waiting inside the witness room.
- Pike delivered a statement and then sang with her spiritual adviser. At one point, the witnesses said, she complained that her arm felt like it was "about to burst open." She later said a spot on her arm was throbbing.
- Witnesses described Pike breathing heavily, moving her head and legs and eventually beginning to snore.
- At about 7:46pm, the curtain was closed while witnesses said Pike was still clearly breathing. It reopened roughly three minutes later before closing again around 8:05pm.
- This time it stayed closed. Witnesses said they could continue hearing Pike's rhythmic snoring and breathing until they were ordered out at about 8:53pm.
What we don't know: The witnesses repeatedly emphasized that they could not see enough to determine what exactly happened and what had gone wrong.
Pike was taken to a hospital for treatment Wednesday night, her lawyers said, though they added they had "not been informed as to her condition."
The Tennessee Department of Correction issued a statement at 11:12pm confirming Pike was taken to a medical facility. The statement said officials had "followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol."
- The protocol does not allow for more than two rounds of pentobarbital.