Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike will likely have brain damage after her botched execution, during which she chillingly lifted her head and asked if the pain she was feeling was normal.
Pike, 50, was rushed to the hospital Wednesday after the Tennessee Department of Corrections administered two doses of the highly potent sedative, Pentobarbital, but it failed to kill her.
The murderer, who was sentenced to death for the monstrous 1995 slaying of a classmate, was “being provided life-saving measures” in the hospital, her lawyers said – but she likely has a brain injury as a result.
Emory University School of Medicine professor Dr. Joel Zivot – who was retained by Pike’s legal team as a medical expert – told the BBC that the amount of the lethal drug pentobarbital in her blood likely never reached a level high enough to stop her breathing and heartbeat.
“It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury,” Zivot explained.
Pike’s attorneys blamed “degraded pentobarbital” and damaged veins for the horrifying failure – as the blasted Tennessee officials who they claim ignored their concerns.
“We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy,” the legal team claimed.
After a second dose of the lethal drug cocktail failed to stop Pike’s heart, her lawyers filed an emergency motion for a stay of execution so she could receive medical care, which District Judge Clifton L. Corker approved.
Pike was strapped to a gurney in the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution’s death chamber just before 7:30 p.m. CDT an hour after her stay of execution was overturned by the Supreme Court.
The State of Tennessee allows for a second dose of the fatal drug cocktail to be administered to a condemned inmate if the first dose doesn’t have the intended effect, but does not clarify what happens if a second dose fails, according to the Associated Press.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said in a statement that “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” has been ordered, and the state’s lone execution slated for this year has been postponed.
Pike would have been just the 19th woman to receive the death penalty in the US since 1976, compared to 1,663 men during the same period.
“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” Pike’s attorneys said in a statement to USA TODAY.
With Post wires
