"Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care," attorneys Randy Spivey, Kelly Gleason, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen said in a statement. "Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery."
Pike, 50, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.
According to her legal team and witness accounts, the state administered two complete rounds of pentobarbital per Tennessee protocol. The drugs failed to kill her after the execution team struggled to establish proper IV access. Witnesses said Pike remained awake longer than expected before she was heard snoring loudly. She was then rushed by ambulance to a Nashville-area hospital unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator.
Her attorneys said on October 2 that both arms were swollen, burned and blistered. Dr. Paul Allen, a professor of anesthesiology at UTHSC, and Dr. Joel Zivot, who consulted for the defense, said the IVs likely infiltrated, leaking the caustic drug into surrounding tissue instead of the vein.
As of Tuesday, despite severe arm injuries, Pike "is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed" in the ICU, her lawyers said. She is now off the ventilator.
Pike is the only person known to have survived a complete execution attempt in U.S. history, according to her attorneys and the Death Penalty Information Center. Her legal team had warned the state in advance about specific challenges with her veins.
The botched execution has already triggered fallout. The head of Tennessee's prison system has resigned, and a court hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. October 7 where Pike's attorneys will ask a chancellor to order the state to preserve all evidence related to the execution.
Her defense team is again calling on Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life imprisonment without parole, calling the attempt torturous. The victim's family, meanwhile, said the state owes them an apology. Colleen Slemmer's mother May Martinez, who traveled from Florida to witness the execution, told local media: "All I wanted was justice."
The Tennessee Department of Correction maintains it "followed every step of the state's lawful, established execution protocol" and has said the protocol "does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out."
Doctors say Pike's long-term prognosis, including whether she will fully recover or be deemed competent again, could take weeks or months to determine.