‘Against all odds’: Christa Pike awake and speaking after botched Tennessee execution

Nashville: Christa Pike, a Tennessee inmate who survived an attempt to execute her, is awake and speaking as she receives treatment at a hospital, her attorneys said.

“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented,” attorneys for Pike said in a statement on Tuesday (US time).

“Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery.”

The attorneys said they were grateful for the first responders and the medical team at the hospital “who treated Christa like a human and have provided exceptional care to her”.

The statement was the first indication that Pike has improved since an ambulance carried her away from a Nashville prison last Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction said she could provide no information other than that Pike remained hospitalised on Tuesday.

Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital as they attempted to put her to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. The lethal injection drug didn’t kill her, but her lawyers said her arms were left burned and blistered.

Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anaesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who consulted as an expert for Pike’s legal team, said the development “bodes well for a good recovery”.

But he said it could be weeks or months before anyone knew exactly what her recovery might look like, and whether her competency could be restored to a level that might enable the state to try again to execute her.

“She’s still in the ICU,” he said. “She has recovered to a certain degree that she’s able to be off a ventilator and able to speak, but in no way would I announce her free of further serious risk.

“There’s still a lot of bad things that can happen here, even when everyone is doing their job well.”

Pike’s attorneys are set to go to court on Wednesday as they seek to learn more about what happened in the failed lethal injection.

The attorneys are seeking a court order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve evidence, including drug lot numbers, records and other information from the September 30 attempted execution. Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles scheduled a Wednesday morning status conference in the case.

Pike’s attorneys said in their statement that they continued to ask Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute Pike’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time,” her attorneys said.

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