Tennessee execution survivor Christa Pike returns to prison from hospital after becoming first person to survive lethal injection. What will happen now?

Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been moved back to prison, her attorneys said Saturday. The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution. The failed execution brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences.

Pike, 50, was discharged from the hospital and is back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said in a written statement.

“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery,” the statement said.


Pike had been hospitalized since surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her on September 30 for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. At one point she was on a ventilator and her attorneys did not expect her to survive. However, they said Pike woke up and began talking and walking with assistance.

The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong in the execution. Medical and lethal injection experts have focused on whether a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream. Pike’s attorneys wrote in a court filing that “apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed.”

Tennessee Goveror Bill Lee has since postponed the state’s only other scheduled execution this year and ordered a review of what went wrong. The state’s prison chief resigned in the wake of the failed execution.

As the process got underway, Pike was asked if she had a final statement and she spoke of being at peace. About five minutes later, she raised her head and said her arm hurt. Later, she appeared to lose consciousness but could be heard breathing heavily until media witnesses were escorted from the witness room nearly 90 minutes into the execution. An ambulance took her to a hospital.