Tennessee Inmate Christa Pike Suffers Likely Brain Injury After Botched Execution

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike is likely to have sustained brain damage following a botched execution attempt on Wednesday. The 50-year-old was administered two doses of the sedative pentobarbital by the Tennessee Department of Corrections, but the drug failed to result in death, prompting her transfer to a hospital for life-saving measures.

Pike's legal team stated that she was "being provided life-saving measures" and that she likely has a brain injury as a consequence of the prolonged procedure. Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine and a medical expert for Pike's legal team, told the BBC that the concentration of pentobarbital in her blood likely never reached a sufficient level to stop her breathing or heartbeat. "It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury," Zivot explained.

Pike's attorneys attributed the execution's failure to "degraded pentobarbital" and difficulties with her veins. They claimed that Tennessee officials ignored their concerns regarding these issues. "We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy," the legal team said in a statement.

After the second dose of the lethal drug cocktail also failed to stop Pike's heart, her lawyers filed an emergency motion for a stay of execution to allow her to receive medical care. This motion was initially approved by District Judge Clifton L. Corker. Pike had been strapped to a gurney in the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution's death chamber shortly before 7:30 p.m. CDT, about an hour after the Supreme Court overturned her stay of execution.

The State of Tennessee's protocol allows for a second dose of the lethal drug if the first is ineffective, but does not specify procedures if a second dose also fails, according to the Associated Press.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced that a "comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred" has been ordered. The state's only scheduled execution for this year has been postponed. Pike would have been the 19th woman executed in the U.S. since 1976, compared to 1,663 men during the same period.

"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," Pike’s attorneys said in a statement to USA TODAY.