Christa Pike has no memory of botched execution after ‘medically unprecedented’ survival, expert says
Death row inmate Christa Pike has been left with no memory of her attempted execution at a Tennessee prison last week after surviving two lethal injections intended to end her life, a medical expert has said.
Attorneys for Pike, 50, announced she was awake and talking Tuesday – six days after she was raced to hospital for life-saving care when the twin doses of pentobarbital failed – branding her recovery a “medically unprecedented” event.
Speaking to The Independent, Dr Joel Zivot, a professor of anaesthesiology and surgery at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, who has been retained by Pike’s legal team, said: “She’s made some good recovery to this point.
“I understand that she is talking and now knows where she is. She has no memory of the execution itself. It’s unclear to me whether she possesses a full cognitive recovery. It’s too soon to really say.
“It could take weeks before that’s more clear. She also will have to recover her general strength. As a simple rule of thumb, I tell patients that one day in bed is one week of recovery.
“She has no doubt generalized muscle weakness,” the doctor continued. “She is still shackled to her gurney, which is what is usually done to prisoners who are in hospitals outside of a prison.
“Many risks remain, and she could also decline in spite of this current improved state.”
Pike was given two doses of the lethal drug at Riverbend maximum security prison in Nashville last Wednesday, only for witnesses to hear her snoring inside the chamber.
Pentobarbital is a barbiturate that slows activity of the brain and nervous system and often used by doctors to treat people suffering from seizures and convulsions. In high doses, it can cause suppression of breathing, heart failure and death.
Dr Zivot told The Independent Pike was likely either to have been given an ineffective dose of pentobarbital or an insufficient quantity.
“Even with circulating pentobarbital in her body, the medical care that she received was likely able to offset the negative impacts of those drugs,” he added. “Pentobarbital kills people because they are not getting medical care at the same time.”
He warned last week that Pike was at risk of sustaining a brain injury after receiving an insufficient quantity of the drug in her blood to cause the apnoea and cardiovascular event intended to kill her.
“It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury,” he said at the time.
The convicted killer was initially described as being in a critical condition after being taken to hospital, only for her legal representatives to reveal in Tuesday’s statement: “Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care.
