A scheduled execution in Tennessee took an extraordinary turn Wednesday night after prison officials administered two doses of a lethal injection drug to convicted murderer Christa Pike, only for witnesses to report that she remained alive, breathing and audibly snoring.
The 50-year-old inmate was supposed to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Instead, the procedure at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville ended with emergency medical personnel rushing to the prison and Pike being transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.
The disturbing sequence of events has prompted an official review of Tennessee’s execution procedures, raising questions about how a process intended to end a prisoner’s life could continue for so long without producing the expected result.
Pike’s attorneys filed emergency court motions as the situation unfolded, arguing that their client was still alive after receiving two injections of pentobarbital, the drug used in the state’s lethal injection protocol.
