Updated Oct. 23, 2026, 5:21 p.m. ET
The team working to execute Christa Pike in Tennessee last month moved forward with administering lethal drugs despite indications that her intravenous lines were not functioning properly, attorneys representing death row inmates revealed in a new court filing.
The team “tried and failed for over two hours to kill Christa Pike,” the attorneys wrote. Personnel trying to establish IV access in Pike’s arms repeatedly believed they had secured a working line before discovering otherwise, and had trouble pushing saline through, according to the filing.
The Oct. 22 court filing, obtained by the Nashville Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, offers new details into what happened in the death chamber that descended into chaos on Sept. 30, when two rounds of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital failed to kill Pike. After she survived both attempts, Pike was taken to a hospital in critical condition and didn’t regain consciousness for days.
The document, part of an ongoing lawsuit by death row prisoners challenging the state’s lethal injection procedures, also raises new questions about the handling of Pike’s botched execution and other executions, including concerns about the qualifications of the physician responsible for carrying them out.
Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
What happened during Christa Pike’s botched execution?
In the filing, a motion seeking to add the allegations about Pike’s failed execution to the ongoing suit, attorneys said there were warnings the IV wasn’t functioning properly before the executioners pushed pentobarbital.
The team punctured her with nearly a dozen needles during the attempt to place the IV. After personnel seemed to have trouble pushing saline, prison warden attributed the difficulty to the positioning of the line and tape being too tight, according to her attorney Randy Spivey, who witnessed the execution.
The Associated Press, citing a declaration written by Spivey and referenced in the new filing, reported that team members warned veins may have “blown.”
“One of them said something like, ‘it’s either blood or blown, I need to know,'” Spivey said in the declaration, according to the AP.
The execution physician did not attempt to establish a central IV line, an alternative procedure permitted under Tennessee’s execution protocol, according to the filing. Pike complained that her arm felt like it was “about to bust” and that one spot was “really burning” as the execution unfolded, the filing said.
She continued speaking with her spiritual adviser after the first dose was administered. Her breathing subsequently became labored, and prison officials closed the curtains separating the execution chamber from witnesses.
After the second dose, Spivey noticed that Pike’s right arm appeared purple below the elbow. He described increasingly loud choking and rhythmic gasping sounds coming from Pike, according to the filing.
Witnesses remained behind closed curtains for nearly an hour as Pike continued struggling to breathe, according to the filing.
Ambulance was delayed in responding to botched execution
The execution also raised questions about the state’s emergency response procedures.
A 911 call requesting an ambulance was made at 8:40 p.m., but first responders were delayed after prison officials initially failed to provide a verification code and dispatchers were incorrectly told the emergency request was not legitimate, according to the court filing.
Emergency personnel were not admitted to the prison until 9:15 p.m. Pike was transported out of the facility at 9:26 p.m.
She remained unresponsive in critical condition for nearly a week before regaining consciousness on Oct. 6.
Her attorneys later reported that she suffered pneumonia, a blood clot, difficulty walking and swallowing, cognitive problems and an inability to move her arms or hands. The full extent of her injuries has not been disclosed.
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