Christa Pike is walking say lawyers in major health update
Christa Pike is back on her feet, eating normally and getting movement back in her arms, her lawyers say, only days after she survived a failed execution.
Her legal team announced the update in a statement on Thursday: "The turnaround in Christa Pike's health in the last three days has been profound and a credit to the medical team caring for her."
The statement was released by Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason of the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender, along with Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen of Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee.
Pike regained consciousness on the morning of Tuesday October 6, according to her lawyers, and by Wednesday afternoon she was managing a few tentative steps.
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"Today, she is walking with some assistance, and her arms—which sustained significant injuries during the execution attempt—are healing and regaining movement and strength," they wrote.
"Her lungs are clear, and she has started to eat a regular diet. Physicians are encouraged by her physical recovery."
The update came with a warning that nobody yet knows the lasting effects of the execution attempt on Pike.
"While her physical recovery has been remarkable, significant questions remain about the long-term effects of what she endured," the statement said.
It went on: "Christa is dealing with the profound psychological trauma of having survived a failed execution, including the terror, pain and uncertainty of believing she was about to die." The lawyers added: "We cannot yet know the full emotional and psychological toll of that experience or how long it will take her to begin to heal."
Her lawyers say Pike "continues to express concern for others, particularly the family of her victim Colleen Slemmer." They also say she is still struggling with "cognitive challenges with concentration and memory," and that "her physicians have cautioned that it may take months to fully understand whether she sustained lasting cognitive injuries."
The statement also outlined the defence team’s version of her past, laying out she was just 18 when she committed her crime "after a childhood marked by rape, sexual violence, physical abuse and neglect," and that she was "finally properly diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder and PTSD caused by her upbringing" later in her time behind bars.
"Christa has endured more than enough," the lawyers said. "We continue to call on Gov. Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She should never be subjected to another execution attempt."
Pike has been on death row for around 30 years over the 1995 killing of her classmate Colleen Slemmer.
Public interest in her case grew as her execution date drew near, because it would have made her the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Ahead of the date, she reportedly said she feared lethal injection and would rather face a firing squad, and she is also reported to have declined what was meant to be her last meal.
Then came the two doses that were meant to end her life – but which she survived.
Michael D. Carroll