Tennessee execution survivor Christa Pike on ventilator, attorneys say

A picture taken on December 4, 2007 shows death row inmate Christa Pike entering a Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, US., obtained by Reuters on September 30, 2026. J. Miles Cary/ Knoxville News Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK via REUTERS

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Oct 2 - Convicted murderer Christa Pike is unconscious, intubated and receiving breathing assistance from a ventilator after Tennessee's failed attempt to execute her, her attorneys said on Friday, providing the first detailed account of the extent of injuries she suffered during the lethal injection.

Hospital staff are working to save Pike's life and clear the lethal drug pentobarbital from her system, her attorneys said in an emergency court filing seeking an order requiring Tennessee's Department of Correction to preserve evidence from Wednesday night's botched execution.

Pike remains in critical condition, her lawyers said, two days after the state administered two doses of pentobarbital but failed to kill her. She has suffered significant injuries to both arms, they added.

"At no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike’s body," Pike's lawyers said in a filing in the Chancery Court for the State of Tennessee Twentieth Judicial District.

The filing provides the fullest picture yet of the medical consequences of an attempted execution that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said followed the state's established protocol. It was the state's second botched execution this year and Lee has halted any further state killings for the rest of 2026 and ordered an independent review of what happened.

Pike's attorneys have said the execution team's difficulties administering the drug were related to intravenous access, an issue they had warned the state and courts about before the execution.

Pike, 50, was convicted of killing her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when Pike was 18. She had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries. REUTERS