Christa Pike is discharged from a hospital and back in prison after becoming the first person to survive lethal-injection drugs during an execution
Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been moved back to prison, her attorneys said Saturday.
Pike, 50, was discharged from the hospital and is back at the Debra K.
Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said in a written 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,” the statement said.
Pike had been hospitalized since surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her on Sept.
30 for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer.
At one point she was on a ventilator and her attorneys did not expect her to survive.
However, they said Pike woke up and began talking and walking with assistance.
The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong in the execution.
Medical and lethal injection experts have focused on whether a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream.
Pike’s attorneys wrote in a court filing that “apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed.” The failed execution brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences.
Tennessee Gov.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on fortune.com — the content belongs to Fortune.