Death row inmate conscious, speaking after failed execution

International

CHRISTA Pike was supposed to die by lethal injection last week.

Instead, the Tennessee death row inmate is now conscious and speaking, according to her lawyers.

Pike, 50, remains under critical medical care and is handcuffed in hospital, her attorneys said Tuesday, six days after Tennessee’s attempt to execute her failed.

She survived two attempts to administer pentobarbital last Wednesday and remained unconscious for several days while medical staff worked to clear the drug from her body, a report by BBC stated.

Her lawyers described her progress as “medically unprecedented” and said they expect a long recovery, although her prognosis remains unclear.

Pike’s case has drawn attention from medical and legal experts because she is believed to be the only person to survive a lethal injection after an execution team successfully injected an execution drug.

Deborah Denno, a criminologist and professor at Fordham Law School, said she was “absolutely astonished” that Pike is conscious and speaking.

Denno told the BBC that seven other prisoners had survived scheduled executions, but in those cases executioners had failed to inject the lethal substance into the inmates’ veins. Pike is believed to be the only person to survive after an execution drug was successfully injected.

Authorities have not said whether they will attempt to execute Pike again and have not explained what went wrong. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has suspended executions in the state for the remainder of the year, while the state’s prisons chief has said he plans to resign.

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teenagers.

Her attorneys are due in court in Nashville on Wednesday and plan to hold a news conference outside the courthouse.

Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiologist advising Pike’s defence team, said surviving lethal injection is highly unusual.

“Most people who get lethal injection die from it,” he told the BBC.

Zivot said there are still major uncertainties over how much pentobarbital entered Pike’s bloodstream, her blood levels after the injection and the nature of her eventual recovery. He cautioned that it was too early to say she was beyond the most serious risks.

He previously said the two doses would have been fatal had they entered her bloodstream normally. Instead, he suggested the drug may have spread through tissue beneath her skin.

Zivot also said a brain injury was “very possible” because of delays in resuscitating Pike and that doctors would need about a week to properly assess her neurological condition.

Pike’s lawyers had previously warned that her thrombocytosis, a blood-clotting condition, and small veins increased the risk of “unnecessary” pain and suffering.(MyTVCebu)