Christa Pike, the US killer who survived Tennessee's botched execution, blames 'incompetence' and says she is in constant pain
Christa Pike, 50, pictured in a Tennessee Department of Correction custody photograph, woke from the failed execution "angry and confused" with no memory of the ordeal.
Christa Pike, 50, the only person known to have survived a lethal injection execution, broke her public silence on Friday — exactly one month after Tennessee's botched attempt on 30 September — issuing a statement through her attorneys. In it she described waking alone in hospital "confused and in pain," with no expectation of making it through that night. She attributed what happened to "incompetence" and said her confinement in the prison medical ward is compounding her suffering.
Tennessee officials spent more than two hours attempting to execute Pike, using at least seven needles — one of which came out bent at 90 degrees — after two full doses of pentobarbital failed to cause her death.
The ordeal left her arms swollen, burned and blistered, damage her lawyers likened to that caused by bleach exposure; she subsequently developed pneumonia and a blood clot before being returned to prison on 10 October.
'I don't know why I survived that night. I don't know what comes next,' Pike said, adding that Governor Bill Lee has suspended all Tennessee executions while investigators probe the failure.
