{"id":873375,"date":"2026-10-07T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T01:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/873375\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T01:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T01:00:10","slug":"christa-pike-is-awake-and-speaking-after-failed-execution-lawyers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/873375\/","title":{"rendered":"Christa Pike is awake and speaking after failed execution, lawyers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tennessee woman who survived an execution attempt last week<\/a> is conscious, speaking and receiving medical care, in a development her attorneys described as \u201cunprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a Tuesday statement, attorneys for Christa Pike said she remains handcuffed and shackled despite having sustained significant injuries to her arms after two injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her.<\/p>\n

The statement described her prognosis as unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a minimum, we expect a long recovery,\u201d attorneys Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason said. \u201cWe are incredibly grateful to the first responders and the medical team at the hospital who treated Christa like a human and have provided exceptional care to her. We also want to thank thousands from all over the world who sent messages offering prayers and support for Christa.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement said the attorneys will speak at a news conference Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Prison officials administered the injections Wednesday <\/a>in an attempt to execute Pike for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time of the murder. <\/p>\n

After the injections failed to kill her, Pike was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator as staff members worked to clear the pentobarbital from her system, her attorneys have said.<\/p>\n

May Martinez, the mother of the murdered teenager, has called the failed execution \u201ca mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, she said Tennessee authorities need to \u201cmake this right\u201d and make sure that Pike remains on death row. <\/p>\n

Pike, 50, would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years.<\/p>\n

Gov. Bill Lee ordered an independent review of the failed execution last week and paused all executions for the rest of the year. Pike\u2019s attorneys have said they believe problems with the IV lines may have caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream. <\/p>\n

On Saturday, Lee announced the resignation of Frank Strada<\/a>, the state\u2019s top prison official.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Strada said he believed the state Department of Correction had carried out its responsibilities \u201cin accordance with the established protocol.\u201d But stepping aside, he added, was in the \u201cbest interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slemmer\u2019s mother said that after what she has been through with the failed execution attempt, Tennessee authorities, including the governor \u2014 \u201cowe me big time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tennessee woman who survived an execution attempt last week is conscious, speaking and receiving medical care, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-873375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}