Christa Pike is ‘up and walking’ for first time after failed execution, lawyer says | Tennessee

Christa Pike is “up and walking” in the hospital, her lawyer said, just over a week after surviving two lethal injections during a botched execution in Tennessee.

The recovery marks a dramatic turnaround after Pike was declared brain dead on Monday, before waking up and beginning to speak on Tuesday. His ordeal shocked many in the United States and abroad and galvanized criticism of the death penalty.

Stephen Ferrell, a lawyer on Pike’s legal team, told the BBC that she was able to walk, but remained mentally foggy. “What was described to me is that physically, there’s quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured and she’s not able to use them much,” Ferrell said.

“She gets up and walks for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far,” he added.

Pike, 50, was taken to the hospital unconscious but alive from the Tennessee execution chamber on September 30, after receiving two doses of the barbiturate pentobarbital.

After the failed execution attempt, one of his attorneys called the process “cruel and tortuous,” adding that he counted seven needles in Pike’s left arm, “one of which appeared bent when it was removed.” Pike had looked up from the execution gurney to say that his arms were burning while the medicine was being administered to him.

Pike’s team is seeking psychological support for her, since “it’s clearly needed now,” Ferrell said. On Wednesday, Pike was described as “angry and confused” after regaining consciousness.

Ferrell said of Pike’s mental state: “I think it’s both good and bad. It’s good that she’s pretty okay, but she’s also a little confused. She can lose her train of thought very easily and forget where she’s going.”

He said it remains to be seen whether Pike will make a full recovery.

“I assume (Pike’s condition) will continue to improve, but there could be some permanent damage. We don’t know that yet.”

On Wednesday, Randy Spivey, another lawyer for Pike, said she was unable to move her arms and was suffering from pneumonia and a blood clot. Despite her condition, Pike was still immobilized, her team said, chained to her hospital bed by her feet and right arm.

Pike’s lawyers had warned before the execution that authorities might have difficulty locating the veins and cause him suffering, but the state insisted the execution go ahead and the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the prison to open.

Medical experts speculate that perhaps some or much of the drug escaped his vein and entered surrounding tissue, that one of his veins — which was problematic, a fact reported by his lawyers months earlier — exploded, that the drug was defective, or a combination of all of these factors.

Pike was 18 and her then-boyfriend was 17 when they killed Colleen Slemmer, 19, a classmate of theirs from the Knoxville Job Corps in Tennessee in 1995.

According to prosecutors, Pike feared Slemmer was trying to take away her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Together, they lured Slemmer to a wooded area, tortured and killed her.

Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike never denied his involvement in Slemmer’s murder. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, but because she was 18, she was sentenced to death and has been on death row in isolation for 30 years.

Pike’s lawyers argued that her original legal team failed to present evidence of the sexual and physical abuse she suffered as a child. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee blocked Pike’s request for clemency. He has since suspended the remaining executions in the state for the rest of the year and ordered a “thorough third-party review to determine exactly what happened.”