Christa Pike describes constant pain after failed Tennessee execution

Christa Pike said she remains in constant physical and psychological pain a month after surviving a failed lethal-injection execution in Tennessee.

In her first public statement since the September 30 attempt, released through her lawyers on Friday, Pike said she had entered the execution chamber prepared to die but awoke several days later in a hospital, confused and in pain. The 50-year-old received two doses of the barbiturate pentobarbital before being taken to hospital unconscious but alive.

“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain,” Pike said, adding that her arms, hands and throat hurt and that she still struggled to speak. She described pain “in my mind and in my soul” and said she had not contemplated life beyond her scheduled execution.

Pike said she was recovering but remained largely isolated in the prison medical ward. She thanked medical workers who saved her life and people who had sent messages of support, while also expressing concern for the family of her victim, Colleen Slemmer.

Pike was sentenced to death for torturing and killing the 19-year-old Slemmer in 1995, when Pike was 18. Her lawyers have asked Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life imprisonment. Lee has ordered an investigation into the failed execution and postponed Tennessee’s other lethal injection scheduled for the year, but said he expected Pike’s sentence to remain unchanged unless courts determined otherwise.