Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike remains on ventilator after failed execution

Christa Pike, the Tennessee death-row inmate whose execution attempt on Wednesday night failed, is currently unconscious and receiving breathing assistance via a ventilator, her lawyers said in a statement on Friday. The attorneys noted that she is being treated for serious injuries to both arms caused by the pentobarbital administered during the procedure.

Pike, who has been on death row for decades, was the first woman in the state in 200 years slated for execution. After two doses of the lethal drug were given, she was rushed to a hospital where she has remained under intensive care.

Her counsel, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen, filed a new petition requesting that the state preserve all evidence related to the botched execution. The filing asserts that the complications observed during the attempt had been warned about by Pike’s legal team months earlier.

At a press briefing, attorneys Ferrell and Randall Spivey described the execution process as lasting more than two hours, during which Pike reportedly expressed severe pain and described a sensation of her arm "about to explode." They said emergency motions to stop the execution were filed in multiple courts before prison staff called an ambulance.

The filing also claims that state officials argued the Tennessee Department of Correction had no duty to provide life-saving care to Pike, despite reports that emergency medical oxygen was not available in the execution chamber and had to be sourced from elsewhere.