What happens inside an execution chamber as Christa Pike survives two lethal injections
Christa Pike became the first person to survive two lethal injections, after surviving her execution on September 30.
Pike has been on death row for the best part of three decades, following her conviction for the murder of student Colleen Slemmer in 1995. She was 20 years old when she was sentenced to death in Tennessee in 1996.
After the botched execution, Pike was taken to hospital, where it was said she was receiving life-saving care.
The state of Tennessee are currently investigating the reasoning behind the botched execution.
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Before being taken to hospital, she was injected with two doses of pentobarbital. However, witnesses heard the 50-year-old snoring after she was injected.
Explaining what the drug does, Jonathan Groner, MD, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery at Ohio State University College of Medicine told UNILAD: "It is a short acting barbiturate. It is used to treat seizures and can be used for 'medically induced coma' for patients with severe head trauma.
"It can also be used for procedural sedations. It is no longer used for general anesthesia."
What happens inside an execution chamber during the lethal injection?
Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection as a means of execution in 1977, as per The Death Penalty Information Center. However, it wasn't until five years later that the first inmate was executed this way. His name was Charles Brooks, and he died by lethal injection which was administered in Texas in December 1982.
As per the site, when someone is executed via this method, they are bound to a gurney and several heart monitors are placed on their skin by a member of the execution team.
Two needles, one which acts as backup, are typically inserted into the prisoner's arms. A curtain is then raised, allowing witnesses in an adjoining room to see the prisoner.
Colleen Slemmer's family were present for Pike's execution, although they were held in a different viewing room to the journalists and media.
Slemmer's mother, May Martinez and stepdad Raul Martinez, had traveled from Florida to witness Pike's execution.
Pike's family, however, were not present.
Slemmer’s niece said Pike's failed execution was 'very frustrating' and 'very draining,' Fox 17 Nashville reports.
Just an hour before Pike's execution was scheduled, at 10 a.m. local time, it was halted by an appeals court. However, hours later the US Supreme Court overturned that stay.
Colleen Slemmer’s niece, Morgan Seeley, told WVLT News after a long period of delays: “It didn’t make sense how they stopped it an hour before she was supposed to go.
“I think that they had enough time out of the 31 years to be able to do this. Colleen is going to get justice today.”
Seeley was born in 2003, eight years after her aunt's death.
She told the outlet: “I heard that she was great with kids. I wish she was able to still be here and see my kids."
Kiesha Dosanjh