US emergency call records reveal confusion after failed execution of Christa Pike
The killer of Colleen Slemmer was ultimately taken to hospital after two doses of lethal injection did not kill her.
US emergency call records expose confusion after failed execution of Christa Pike
Emergency call records have shown the confusion that arose among prison staff and emergency call handlers after the execution of convicted murderer Christa Pike went wrong last month in Tennessee.
Pike, 50, who killed Colleen Slemmer alongside her then-boyfriend in 1995, was given two doses of lethal injection on 30 September. Once it became apparent that she would not die from the dosage, she was taken to hospital.
The confusion was partly caused by an apparent disconnect between prison staff, according to the AP news agency, which first obtained audio of the emergency calls.
This is said to have delayed Pike's treatment. The BBC has asked the state corrections department for comment.
The department has not yet said what it believes went wrong in the attempted execution of Pike. Pike's legal team has suggested that the pentobarbital chemical she was injected with probably spread under the skin rather than reaching her bloodstream in a sufficient amount to kill her.
Pike has now been discharged from hospital, though in their latest update on her condition, her team warned that she faced a "long road to recovery". It is not clear what treatment, if any, she is receiving now that she is back in prison.
Her case is now in uncharted territory, as she is believed to be the only person to have survived an execution attempt by lethal injection.
Slemmer's mother, who was among those advocating for Pike to be put to death, has called the failed execution a "mess".
Pike's boyfriend at the time of the murder, Tadaryl Shipp, remains in prison, having been spared the death penalty because he was not yet an adult when the crime was committed.
The sequence of events on the evening of 30 September was reconstructed by US media using a combination of emergency call recordings and transcripts.
The first call from Riverbend Prison - reportedly made at 20:40 local time - was treated as false by first responders after the caller was unable to verify themselves using a code.
That person appeared to be in a part of the prison where the injections were taking place. They said: "We've been carrying out an execution tonight. We've administered 10 grams of pentobarbital. The person is not yet deceased. That started approximately one hour ago. And we're calling for an ambulance."
The Nashville Department of Emergency Communications released records of its conversations with other local agencies as it tried to confirm whether the call was genuine.
The confusion seems to have been worsened by other prison staff, from the institution's central command, who said at 21:07 that they "would have been the ones to call in" and that they "did not make that call".
It was not until about 21:11 that prison officials confirmed that the initial call, made about half an hour earlier, had in fact been genuine. At that point, emergency responders were allowed through the prison gates.
A later call acknowledged that the situation had been chaotic. At 21:34, as Pike was being taken to hospital, one medic asked a colleague to make sure the prison knew where Pike was being taken, "just 'cause there's been so much other confusion".
Pike's lawyers have not yet commented on the recordings.
Over the course of last week, her team issued frequent updates on Pike's condition - describing how she had regained the ability to walk and talk before eventually being discharged from hospital care.
It remains unclear whether or when the state will try again to execute Pike. Some state Republicans have called for a new method to be tried. Pike's legal team, meanwhile, are urging Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole.
For now, Lee has paused the state's executions for the rest of the year. An investigation is under way into what went wrong with Pike's execution.
The head of the state's corrections department is resigning from his post in the aftermath of the botched execution.