According to Christa Pike’s aunt the family was told she was brain dead and would be taken off life support, but instead she woke up and can even talk now.
Christa Pike’s aunt, Carrie Ross, says relatives were told 50-year-old Christa Pike was brain dead after the botched execution and that she had been taken off the ventilator.
“We got word that she was brain dead and they were taking her off the ventilator,” the sister of Pike’s late mother told the Daily Mail. “They were going to let her go – let her die – at 1 o’clock tomorrow. That was yesterday or a day before.”
Instead, Pike woke up on Tuesday, nearly a week after Tennessee tried to execute her by lethal injection on September 30.
The family has been left waiting in the dark
Ross says no one in the family has been able to speak to Pike since she woke up, instead relying on her lawyers, who told them she “knew who she was and where she was.”
“This whole week has been a blur,” Ross said, and Pike’s legal team agrees. “On Monday night, it was our understanding that Christa was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day,” attorney Randy Spivey said at a press conference on Wednesday and added:
“I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning, but what we do know is Christa has a long road to recovery.”
Pike’s current condition
Pike’slawyers say she woke “against all odds” and can talk, though only a little. She has pneumonia and a blood clot in one arm. She can’t swallow and hasn’t eaten since waking up and remains handcuffed to the hospital bed.
Her arms are the biggest worry. Her lawyers say at least seven needles were used on her during the attempt, and at one point she herself told prison staff where to inject her.
“Both of her arms and hands are tremendously swollen and we do not know what if any function she will regain in her arms,” Spivey said. As far as her attorneys know, her first words were “Where am I?” and “Who are you?” She’s also asked about her legal team and the victim’s family. “I think she is angry and confused about everything right now,” Spivey said.
Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist advising her team, told The Sun that Pike has no memory of the execution itself. “She does not have any memory of the execution itself, but does have some memory of at least being a patient in the hospital on a ventilator,” he said.
Could Tennessee try the execution again?
According to Dr. Zivot, what happens next depends on Pike’s recovery. Her attorneys say the state has made “no promises” that it won’t try executing her again.
“If Christa Pike returns to her normal neurologic self – that is to know who she is, where she is and what she’s done – then she certainly faces the prospect of another attempt at executing her,” he said. If she has a permanent cognitive decline, however, it could work in her favor.
The botched execution did not come as a surprise to many. Pike’s lawyers had warned about this exact outcome before the execution. The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected the argument that the state’s protocol had no plan for medical care if she did. It said the state was “under no obligation to attempt revival” and called her fears “too speculative.” The judges also noted that pentobarbital had been used in more than 100 executions “without incident.”
On Wednesday, her lawyers won a court fight to preserve evidence from the attempt, including the drugs, the IV lines and surveillance footage. It could lay the groundwork for legal action against Tennessee.
Pike is the first person known to have survived a lethal injection of pentobarbital, but others, including Tony Carruthers in Tennessee, have survived executions when executioners failed to get IV access.
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