Christa Pike's family told she was brain dead and would be allowed to die, then she woke up

In a sensational claim, Christa Pike's aunt has claimed that they were told that the death row inmate was brain dead after the botched execution and that authorities would let her die after taking her off from ventilator. Pike's legal team now says she is now awake and is able to speak, though her talking is limited.

“We got word that she was brain dead and they were taking her off the ventilator,” Pike’s aunt Carrie Ross told the Daily Mail. “They were going to let her go – let her die – at 1 o’clock tomorrow. That was yesterday or a day before.”

Later the family learned that Pike has regained consciouness but they have not been able to talk to her. Pike is in Tennessee hospital where she is reportedly handcuffed to her bed despite her condition.


Pike, 50, survived even after executioners tried to give her two lethal doses of pentobarbital on Sept. 30. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer.

Meanwhile, Pike's attorneys has asked the court to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to save evidence in the case and provide more information about what went wrong. A judge ordered the state to preserve “anything that was in the actual room.”

“Part of the issue that we are facing is up until yesterday, our client was unconscious, unable to communicate with counsel, unable to communicate with medical providers, and without her consent" a new lawsuit cannot be filed, Luke Ihnen, a federal public defender, told the court.

Her legal team said Tuesday that Pike’s prognosis remains unclear and, at a minimum, she faces a lengthy recovery. Her arms were burned and blistered after the attempted lethal injection and she is handcuffed to the hospital bed, they said.

The failed execution has renewed scrutiny of how states carry out the death penalty, in particular the use of lethal injection.