Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike remained critically ill in hospital after authorities failed to execute her by lethal injection, according to court documents filed by her lawyers.
Pike, 50, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday. Prison officials administered two doses of the drug pentobarbital, but she did not die. She was later transported by ambulance to a hospital in the Nashville area, where she was unconscious, intubated and receiving assistance from a ventilator.
Her attorneys are now asking authorities to preserve all evidence connected to the failed execution. In an emergency court filing, they said medical staff were treating Pike and attempting to remove the pentobarbital from her body.
The lawyers also raised concerns about the process used to establish intravenous access. According to their filing, execution staff attempted to insert IV lines at least seven times. One of the needles was reportedly bent when it was removed, while Pike herself allegedly indicated another location where staff could try to place a line.
Pike's legal team said she could be heard crying, whimpering and breathing heavily during the procedure. They argue that the IV lines may not have been properly positioned and that the drug could have entered the tissue beneath her skin rather than her bloodstream.
Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiologist who has advised Pike's defence team, said that two doses of pentobarbital would normally have been sufficient to cause death if the drug had entered the bloodstream properly.
Zivot suggested that Pike's survival could indicate that the concentration of pentobarbital in her blood never reached a lethal level. He also pointed to reports of blisters on her arm as possible evidence of a ruptured vein.
Pike has a medical condition known as thrombocytosis, which can increase the tendency for blood to clot. Her lawyers had previously warned that the condition, combined with her small veins, could make the lethal-injection procedure particularly difficult and potentially cause unnecessary suffering.
Zivot said blood clots around the injection site could potentially have interfered with the drug entering the bloodstream. He also discussed another possibility: if the pentobarbital had degraded, problems with manufacturing or storage could potentially have affected its effectiveness. Authorities have not publicly established what caused the execution attempt to fail.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee ordered an independent investigation into the incident and suspended executions in the state for the remainder of the year. The Tennessee Department of Correction has defended the execution procedure, saying its protocol did not permit additional procedures beyond those already carried out.
Officials have not said whether Tennessee intends to attempt Pike's execution again.
The failed execution occurred after Pike's lawyers made several last-minute efforts to stop it. The US Supreme Court rejected two separate attempts to halt the lethal injection, while Governor Lee also denied Pike's request for clemency.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. She was 18 at the time of the killing. According to court records, Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, attacked and killed Slemmer following a dispute involving Pike's allegations that Slemmer had insulted her and attempted to take her boyfriend.
Pike was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 following a case that attracted considerable media attention.
Shipp was 17 when the murder occurred and therefore could not receive a death sentence under Tennessee law. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole and remains incarcerated.
Pike's lawyers are seeking to have her death sentence commuted following the failed execution. Their latest legal filing asks that physical, written and electronic evidence relating to the execution attempt be preserved while questions remain about what happened during the procedure.
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