Death row inmate who survived execution attempt describes moment he thought he 'was dead'

There's not many people in the world who can say they've survived an execution, but one man in the US managed exactly that.

Thomas Creech has now opened up about the moment he thought he was 'dead' after things went wrong, or very right depending on your point of view, as his lethal injection somehow failed last year.

Death Row has long been a source of controversy in the US, with Gregory Hunt selecting an unusual new method of execution in Alabama earlier this month.

And after more than 50 years on Death Row in Idaho, 74-year-old Thomas Creech would have expected that his time was finally up when a date was pencilled in for his lethal injection.

Who is Thomas Creech?

Thomas is an American serial killer who convicted of two murders in 1974, but he killed a further three people during his time behind bars.

He was found guilty after admitting to killing two men who were hitchhiking in the US, but later shocked the nation when he confessed to killing 42 people while on the stand, something which he has since taken back.

Creech survived his lethal injection (Idaho Department of Corrections)

Why was he on death row?

Creech was sent back to death row in 1981 after he killed another man while imprisoned.

While he was there, he met his current wife, LeAnn Creech, and he said he was picturing her face when he thought his day to die had arrived.

When he initially confessed to the 42 murders, it was suggested that some of them were done on behalf of a motorcycle gang, or even as part of a Satanic religious ritual.

How did he survive?

It seems remarkable to say but Creech is only one of the latest in a relatively long list of people whose executions have been botched, with nine in the last six years alone.

The New York Times puts this down to a challenging combination of untrained executioners, difficulty in securing lethal drugs and an aging death row population. In Mr Creech's case, it was the executioner's struggle to find a vein which led to the failed attempt, as they were unable to pump the deadly drug into his bloodstream.

After over an hour of trying to find a vein in his arms, hands, legs and finally ankles, they finally gave up.

What did he say about it?

Speaking to the NYT, Mr Creech said: “The worst ones was when they got down to my ankles. I was thinking the whole time that this is really it. I’m dead. This is my day to die.

“I thought maybe I might already be in the afterlife,” he said. “Even now, today, I stop and I have to catch myself and think, ‘Am I really dead? I was supposed to be dead on the 28th of February. Am I really dead, and this is part of the afterlife? Continued punishment for my sins that I’ve committed?’"

A federal judge extended his stay of execution in November last year (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

The state initially tried to rearrange his execution but those plans were put on hold after his attorney Deborah Czuba argued it was 'needless'.

She said: “Mr Creech has spent more than 50 years in prison and is now suf­fer­ing from sig­nif­i­cant men­tal health issues because of the trau­ma he was sub­ject­ed to when the state failed to exe­cute him. We hope the courts will rec­og­nise the cru­el and unusu­al lev­el of pun­ish­ment that this remorse­ful and harm­less old man has already been through, and stop a needless execution.”