NASHVILLE, USA- Christa Pike has been discharged from hospital and returned to a Tennessee prison, 10 days after surviving the state’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her attorneys said.
Pike, 50, is back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she had been held for about 30 years.
Her lawyers said she would continue receiving medical care at the prison as she recovers.
Pike was taken to hospital on September 30 after Tennessee officials administered two doses of pentobarbital during the execution attempt.
She was placed on a ventilator and her lawyers initially feared she might not survive.
She later regained consciousness and began talking and walking with assistance, according to her attorneys.
The Death Penalty Information Center has said Pike is the first person known to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution attempt.
State review follows failed execution
The Tennessee Department of Correction said after the attempt that officials had followed the state’s execution protocol. The department has not publicly explained what went wrong.
Pike’s lawyers have alleged that the intravenous lines were incorrectly placed, preventing the drug from being properly administered.
A judge has ordered Tennessee officials to preserve records and other evidence connected to the execution attempt, including surveillance footage, equipment and medical records.
Pike’s lawyers sought the order as they investigate what happened.
Governor Bill Lee halted the state’s remaining scheduled executions for 2026 and ordered an independent review.
Tennessee’s prison chief, Frank Strada, resigned in the aftermath.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at a vocational school in Knoxville.
Pike was 18 at the time of the crime. She had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
