Emergency call records have exposed confusion among prison staff and responders after Christa Pike survived a lethal injection attempt in Tennessee and was taken to hospital.
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01Summary
- 01Christa Pike, 50, was given two doses of lethal injection on 30 September but did not die and was taken to hospital.
- 02Emergency call records published by the Nashville Banner show prison staff and handlers struggled to confirm whether the first call from Riverbend Prison was genuine.
- 03Pike killed Colleen Slemmer alongside her then-boyfriend in 1995, and Slemmer’s mother called the failed execution a "mess".
- 04Pike has now been discharged from hospital, while her legal team says she faces a "long road to recovery".
- 05Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has paused executions for the rest of the year and an investigation is under way.
02Why it matters
The case raises questions about how a US execution could fail and what happens next in a state pause on executions. It also matters because Pike may be the only person known to have survived an execution attempt by lethal injection.
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