Tennessee inmate describes month-long recovery from failed injection

Christa Pike described a month of continuous physical and mental anguish in her first public statement since surviving a lethal injection in Tennessee on September 30. The 50-year-old inmate said she remains in constant pain and struggles to form words as she recovers in a prison infirmary.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 stabbing death of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. At the time of the crime, Pike was 18 and had been torturing and killing the victim with her boyfriend. She is one of the youngest women ever sentenced to death in the United States.

The state administered two doses of pentobarbital to Pike during the execution attempt. Instead of dying, she woke up alone and confused in a hospital bed. Pike said she never expected to live past her scheduled execution date and had prepared to die in peace.

“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul,” Pike said.

She attributed the failed procedure to state incompetence, a view she expressed in a statement dictated to her legal team from the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. “I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position,” she said. Pike also noted that she continues to think about the victim’s family and the loss they have endured.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has called for an investigation into the failed execution and postponed the state’s other lethal injection scheduled for this year. Pike’s attorneys have asked the governor to reduce her sentence to life imprisonment. Lee told reporters this week that he suspects her sentence will remain unchanged unless the courts decide otherwise.

Pike expressed gratitude for the medical workers who saved her life and the kindness she received during her hospitalization. She said she is trying to heal one day at a time while holding on to the support of those who reminded her she is not alone.