Christa Pike said Friday she remains in constant pain and struggles to speak a month after surviving a lethal injection attempt in Tennessee, a failure she attributes to "incompetence." In her first public statement since the Sept. 30 execution attempt, Pike said she had been prepared to die in peace but instead woke up alone and confused in a hospital bed.
"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. The 50-year-old survived two doses of pentobarbital administered for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer, a crime committed when Pike was 18.
Pike said she is deeply hurt by the incompetence that put many people in a terrible position and continues to think about the victim's family and their enduring loss. She expressed gratitude for the medical workers who saved her life and those who have shown her kindness, adding she is trying to heal one day at a time while holding onto the love and support reminding her she is not alone.
According to her lawyers, the failed injection left Pike's arms burned and blistered; she was unconscious and on a ventilator for the first days of her hospitalization. Experts have focused on a possible IV line issue that caused the drug to pool in tissue rather than enter the bloodstream. Gov. Bill Lee has called for an investigation and postponed the state's other scheduled execution, while the prison chief resigned.
Pike's attorneys have urged Lee to reduce her sentence to life imprisonment, though the governor said this week he suspects her sentence will remain the same unless courts determine otherwise. Friday's statement was dictated to her legal team from the prison infirmary at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she was moved after hospitalization.
Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal
Original reporting: Las Vegas Review-Journal →
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