The lawyer for convicted murderer Christa Pike says she woke up in hospital “angry and confused … surrounded by people she didn’t know with a tube down her throat” after surviving a failed execution attempt in Tennessee, US, last week.
Pike, who was sentenced to death for her role as a teenager in the torture and murder of her 19-year-old schoolmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995, is the first person known to have survived a “completed execution attempt” in the US, according to her legal team.
Her attorney, Randy Spivey, told the media that the first words she said upon regaining consciousness, “to the shock of everyone”, were “Who am I?” and “Who are you?”, adding that Pike has a blood clot in one of her arms, has pneumonia, is unable “to swallow yet, so she has not eaten”, and is unable to move either of her arms.
“We do not know what, if any, function she will regain in her arms, but we do know that there is a long road ahead … there are so many questions that need to be answered, not by Christa, but by the state of Tennessee,” he added.
Pike’s lawyers are set to go to court later this week as they seek to learn more about what happened in the failed lethal injection.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction said she could provide no information other than that Pike remained in hospital.
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