Krista Pike execution in the US fails, she is taken to hospital

An execution failed to go ahead as planned in the US state of Tennessee: on Wednesday evening, fifty-year-old Krista Pike, convicted of brutally murdering a school friend more than 30 years ago, was given a lethal injection twice, yet survived and was taken to hospital in critical condition after the procedure.

Long before the execution, Pike and her lawyers had warned that the chosen method — a pentobarbital injection — might not work. The condemned woman has been diagnosed with a blood-clotting disorder and very thin veins, a point her defense repeatedly raised in court. As an example, her lawyers cited the botched execution of killer Tony Carruthers, whose intravenous line could not be set up at the same Nashville prison in May, forcing the sentence to be postponed by a year. The defense had asked for the injection to be replaced with a firing squad or hanging, but the courts refused.

Unable to find a vein

Problems began right from the start. Staff struggled for a long time to insert the catheter through which the lethal dose was to be delivered — the whole procedure took about an hour. According to attorney Randy Spivey, at least seven needles were inserted into the condemned woman’s left forearm alone, one of which came out bent when it was removed.

Last words before the execution

At around half past six in the evening, Pike was wheeled out on a gurney before the witnesses to the execution, an IV line already in her arm. She was allowed to speak her last words: she said she was leaving this life with love, adding, “I’m ready to be free, this is a happy day.” A few minutes later, she asked the staff whether it was normal for her arm to hurt.

Moans from behind the curtain

Five minutes after the drug was administered, the curtain in the room was drawn — under protocol, this signals that the execution is complete. But three minutes later the curtain was opened again: the rules require a second dose of pentobarbital if the inmate has not died after the first. At one point Pike began to lose consciousness and moan, then raised her head and turned it to the side — but kept breathing. The curtain was drawn for good about ten minutes later, yet the moaning from the room did not stop. According to attorney Spivey, half an hour later he demanded that the execution be halted and that the woman be given emergency medical care. Half an hour after that, he was told an ambulance had been dispatched to the prison; it arrived roughly 25 minutes later and took Pike to hospital.

What doctors say

František Dučka, head of the anesthesiology department at Prague’s Královské Vinohrady University Hospital, explained earlier that everything points to the injection having been administered incorrectly. “The drug has to be given intravenously — that is, directly into the bloodstream. Judging by what has been reported in the press, the woman who was to be executed suffered what’s known as extravasation: some or all of the substance went not into the vein but into the surrounding tissue, where it causes pain and cell death but isn’t absorbed by the body. That is probably why the woman survived,” he said.

Pike is currently in intensive care in critical condition. “At the moment we have no idea about her prognosis and little new information about her condition,” attorney Spivey said.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz