Christa Pike is back behind prison walls after surviving what her attorneys describe as an unprecedented failed execution by lethal injection in Tennessee.
Pike, 50, has been discharged from the hospital and returned to the Debra K Johnson Rehabilitation Centre, the women’s prison where she had been housed for 30 years, her lawyers said in a statement.
“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery,” her lawyers said.
The state attempted to execute Pike on 30 September for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, administering two doses of pentobarbital, according to her legal team. Pike survived.
Following the botched execution, Pike had remained in a hospital.
Her condition at one stage was critical: she was placed on a ventilator, and her lawyers said they did not expect her to live. They later reported that she regained consciousness and began talking and walking with assistance.
The Death Penalty Information Centre said Pike is the first person known to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.
Tennessee correctional officials have not publicly explained what caused the execution to fail.
Outside experts in medicine and lethal injection procedures have zeroed in on whether a malfunction or misplacement involving the IV line prevented the drug from reaching Pike’s bloodstream, instead causing it to collect in surrounding tissue.
In a court filing, Pike’s lawyers said “apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realise that the IV lines were not correctly placed”.
The episode has intensified scrutiny of Tennessee’s execution protocols and how the state carries out death sentences.
In response, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee postponed the state’s only other execution scheduled this year and ordered a review into what went wrong.
The state’s prison chief resigned after the failed execution.
According to accounts of the event, as the execution began Pike was asked if she had a final statement, and she spoke about being at peace.
Roughly five minutes later, she lifted her head and said her arm hurt.
She later appeared to lose consciousness, though witnesses reported hearing heavy breathing until media observers were escorted from the witness room nearly 90 minutes after the process started.
An ambulance later transported Pike to a hospital.
