Extent of Christa Pike's injuries revealed after waking up following failed lethal injection execution
Killer Christa Pike's condition has been revealed after she woke up following her failed execution by lethal injection.
The inmate who was on death row for three decades is now said to be awake and speaking after surviving the failed execution last week.
However she remains in hospital receiving critical care by specialists, and it is unclear whether or not she will face a second execution attempt further down the line.
Pike had been sentenced to death after murdering Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
Advert
But she survived the two failed lethal injections last Wednesday (30 September) in Tennessee, and was rushed to hospital remaining unconscious for days.
Her legal team had claimed that faulty IV lines allowed the drug to leak into her tissue, causing both arms to become ‘swollen, burned and blistered’.
Gov. Bill Lee later halted the one remaining execution for the rest of the year in Tennessee pending an investigation.
Christa Pike's condition after botched execution
Pike has become the first person ever to get full doses of the drugs intended to kill her and survive. She was supposed to become the first woman put to death in Tennessee in two centuries.
There was huge media attention before she was injected with two doses of pentobarbital last Wednesday, a drug widely used in the US for executions.
Her lawyers have now said she is conscious, describing her recovery as 'medically unprecedented'.
"Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care," they said.
"Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed.
"Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery."
Dr Joel Zivot, a professor of anaesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who consulted as an expert for Pike's legal team, has since opened up about her condition.
He said the major development on Tuesday (6 October) 'bodes well for a good recovery', as per RTE.
But, he explained that it could be weeks or months before anyone knows exactly what her recovery might look like, and whether her competency could be restored to a level that might enable the state to try again to execute her.
"She’s still in the ICU," he said. "She has recovered to a certain degree that she’s able to be off a ventilator and able to speak.
"But in no way would I announce her free of further serious risk.
"There’s still a lot of bad things that can happen here, even when everyone is doing their job well."
But whether or not Pike will face a second execution has not yet been determined.
Her former attorney previously told LADbible that if she had been severely brain damaged and left incapacitated by the first botched attempt, that it would not be attempted again.
However Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has not yet responded to repeated calls from her attorney's to commute her sentence from the death penalty to spending the rest of her life in prison.
James Holt