Christa Pike discharged from hospital and returned to prison after failed execution

Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row prisoner who survived a failed execution attempt on Sept. 30, has been discharged from the hospital and returned to prison, her attorneys said Saturday.

Pike, 50, is back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, the women's prison where she was held before the planned execution, according to CBS News and WSMV. Her lawyers said she will keep receiving medical care there.

"She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances," her attorneys said in a joint statement reported by ABC News, CBS News and WSMV. "She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery."

None of the outlets reported the exact date she left the hospital.

## How her recovery unfolded

Pike spent the first days after the execution attempt unconscious and on a ventilator, according to the Associated Press, as published by PBS NewsHour.

Her attorneys have given near-daily updates since. They said she regained consciousness last Tuesday, took limited steps with help on Wednesday and was walking "with some assistance" by Thursday, CBS News reported. They also said her arms, which were burned and blistered, were regaining movement and strength, her lungs were clear and she had resumed eating normal meals.

AP reported that she was initially confused and still struggles with concentration and memory. Doctors have said it is too early to judge any long-term effects, according to AP.

## What happened on Sept. 30

Tennessee tried to execute Pike with two doses of the sedative pentobarbital. Witnesses reported she was still breathing heavily nearly 90 minutes into the process, before media witnesses were removed, AP reported. She was then taken to a hospital by ambulance.

Experts are examining whether a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream, according to AP. In a court filing, her attorneys wrote that "apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed."

State officials have not publicly explained what went wrong, AP reported.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Pike is the only known person in the United States to survive an execution attempt, CBS News reported.

## The case behind the sentence

Pike was convicted in 1995 of the murder of a 19-year-old classmate at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Court filings describe a prolonged, brutal attack in a wooded area of campus, carried out when Pike was 18, with help from her boyfriend and a friend, according to CBS News.

She has spent more than 30 years in custody at the Nashville prison, her attorneys told WSMV.

## The state's response

Republican Gov. Bill Lee ordered a review of the failed execution and postponed the only other execution Tennessee had scheduled this year, AP reported. The state's prisons chief resigned after the attempt.

It remains unclear whether Tennessee will try to execute Pike again. Her attorneys plan to ask Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole. "She should never be subjected to another execution attempt," they said, according to AP.

## What happens next

Pike's return to prison moves the case from a medical emergency back to a legal and political question. The key decisions still ahead are the outcome of the governor's review, whether the state sets a new execution date, and how Lee responds to the request for clemency.

The Tennessee Department of Correction had not commented publicly on her discharge in the reports reviewed by NextGen America. NextGen America will update this story as the courts and the governor's office act.