Death row inmate Christa Pike has regained consciousness and is speaking in hospital after surviving Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her last week.
Pike, 50, was subjected to a lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on September 30, but survived after two doses of the execution drug were administered.
Her lawyers said Tuesday that Pike remains in critical care but is now conscious and able to speak.
“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” her attorneys said in a statement.
Pike was taken to hospital after the execution attempt failed and had remained unconscious and on a ventilator for several days.
Her lawyers said she suffered severe injuries to her arms during the procedure and remains handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed. They said her prognosis remains unclear and that she is expected to face a long recovery.
The legal team is seeking additional information from the Tennessee Department of Correction on what happened during the execution attempt.
A court hearing has been scheduled in Nashville, where Pike’s lawyers are expected to seek preservation of evidence related to the procedure.
The case has prompted an investigation ordered by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who suspended the state’s remaining scheduled execution for 2026 pending a third-party review of what went wrong. The state’s Department of Correction has maintained that its established execution protocol was followed.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in Knoxville, Tennessee. She was 18 at the time of the crime.
Her execution would have been the first of a woman in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
Pike is believed to be the first known person in the United States to survive after lethal injection drugs were administered during an execution attempt.
Her attorneys are now seeking to have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment without parole as they continue legal proceedings surrounding the failed execution.
