Convicted killer Christa Pike back on her feet in US hospital after botched execution attempt

US death row inmate Christa Pike has begun walking around her hospital room after surviving a botched execution attempt in Tennessee.

The 50-year-old survived two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital during an attempt to execute her on September 30 for the 1995 murder of fellow student Colleen Slemmer.

Her lawyer Stephen Ferrell told the BBC Pike was now walking short distances, although her recovery remains uncertain.

“She is up and walking for the first time today but just around the room, not very far,” he said.

According to reports citing her lawyers, Pike’s first words after regaining consciousness were “Where am I?” and “Who are you?”

Pike’s legal team previously said the execution attempt left her arms burned and blistered, with the extent of her injuries and recovery still unclear.

The Death Penalty Information Centre said Pike was the only person known to have survived after lethal drugs were injected during the modern era of the US death penalty.

At least seven other prisoners have survived execution attempts, according to the centre, but in those cases the procedures were halted because officials could not establish reliable intravenous access and the lethal drugs were never administered.

Pike’s lawyers are opposing any further attempt to execute her by lethal injection and are calling on Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Lee has paused all further executions in the state and ordered a “comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred”.

That pause extendsto another Tennessee death row inmate, Gary Wayne Sutton, whose was scheduled to be executed on December 3.

The head of the state’s prison system, Frank Strada, has also resigned in the wake of the incident.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Slemmer, a fellow student at a vocational training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing.

It remains unclear what the next steps will be for Pike, whose lawyers say her medical prognosis is still uncertain.