Newly revealed dispatch audio shows the complete confusion when Tennessee prison officials called for help after Christa Pike survived her botched execution — with one dispatcher assuming it was someone “prank calling.”
Pike — who was sentenced to death for the grisly 1995 murder of a college classmate — survived two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital on Sept. 30, the first death row inmate ever to do so.
The first 911 call came in around 8:40 p.m., roughly an hour after she received her first dose. The caller claims that Pike, 50, was given “10 grams of pentobarbital” as part of an execution but requested an ambulance because “the person is not yet deceased.”
The caller was unable to provide a verification code to confirm it was genuine, and the dispatcher eventually called the Tennessee Department of Correction Central Control at 8:49 p.m. to verify.
“We are trying to find out if that is an actual thing that is happening and we need to send an ambulance” or “if this is someone that is basically prank-calling or like swatting us,” she said.
As she struggled to get proper confirmation from officials, the dispatcher reveals around 9:03 p.m. that she “has been informed it is a false call” and “there is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison,” according to the recording.
Minutes later, however, a responder reported that someone at the prison gate was insisting the emergency was real.
“Somebody is outside the gate at the prison telling us that it’s real and demanding us to go in. They say they are some sort of state official. I need somebody to get out to the gate and talk to those people,” the responder said on the call.
Prison officials didn’t confirm the call for help was legitimate until 9:11 p.m., the call logs show.
Pike was strapped to a gurney in the death chamber for about an hour as medical staff jabbed her with at least seven needles, one of which bent a full 90-degrees when it came out of her arm, her attorney Randy Spivey said.
Witnesses were rushed out of the viewing room after reporting hearing loud snores from behind a curtain. Pike was rushed to the hospital unconscious with her lawyers fearing she was brain dead — but she miraculously woke up six days later.
Pike was discharged from the hospital on Saturday and sent back to prison where she’s continuing to receive medical care, according to her lawyers.
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