911 calls show half-hour delay after Christa Pike’s failed execution

Emergency responders were delayed for about half an hour after Tennessee’s attempted execution of Christa Pike because officials struggled to verify that a 911 call from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution was legitimate, according to dispatch records released Monday.

The first call was placed at 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30, more than an hour after the lethal-injection procedure began. The caller said 10 grams of an execution drug had been administered but Pike was still alive and needed an ambulance. The caller could not provide a verification code requested by the dispatcher.

Emergency communications personnel then contacted multiple agencies, including prison Central Control. At 9:03 p.m., a dispatcher said supervisors had been told the request was false and that no medical assistance was needed. At 9:07 p.m., Central Control said it had not made the call, while a responder at the prison gate reported that a state official was insisting the emergency was real. Prison officials confirmed the request and allowed responders to enter at about 9:11 p.m.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital during the state’s effort to execute her for the 1995 killing of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was hospitalized in critical condition and placed on a ventilator, but later regained consciousness and began speaking and walking with assistance. Her lawyers said she was subsequently discharged and returned to the women’s prison where she had been held.