Christa Pike on ventilator after surviving Tennessee execution attempt, lawyer says

Christa Pike on ventilator after surviving Tennessee execution attempt, lawyer says

Pike, 50, in critical condition after surviving state's lethal injection attempt on Wednesday

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 failed 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.

What happened in Tennessee's failed execution of Christa Pike and what comes next?

"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. Lee ⁠has halted any further state killings for the rest of 2026 and ordered ⁠an independent review of what happened.

What we know about failed execution of Christa Pike

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.