US death row killer Christa Pike remains in 'critical' condition and on ventilator after botched execution
Hospital staff are working to save Pike’s life as the 50-year-old remains in critical condition two days after receiving two doses of pentobarbital
Christa Pike is unconscious and receiving assistance from a ventilator after surviving two lethal injections, according to her lawyers.
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Hospital staff are providing treatment to save Pike’s life and clear the drug from her system, her lawyers have said.
The 50-year-old is in critical condition two days after she received two doses of pentobarbital during a botched execution, which failed to kill her and left her with serious injuries to both arms.
Her legal team have filed an emergency court application requiring Tennessee's Department of Correction to preserve evidence from Wednesday night's execution.
They said: “At no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike’s body".
Instead of "remedying this failure", those carrying out the injection prepared and administered a backup dose of pentobarbital to Pike, her lawyers added.
The filing provides the fullest picture yet of the medical consequences of the attempted execution.
Pike’s lawyers have reported that those carrying out the execution had difficulty administering the drug because of problems accessing her veins, an issue they had warned the state and courts about before the execution.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said the attempted execution followed the state's protocol, despite it being the second botched execution in the state this year.
Mr Lee has halted any further executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year and ordered a third-party review of the state's execution procedures.
Pike was convicted of murdering her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when Pike was 18.
Her sentencing in 1996 made her the first woman to be sentenced to death in Tennessee in more than two centuries for the stabbing and beating of her classmate.
She had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
A last-minute legal challenge was launched on Monday in an attempt to stop the execution, with her clemency petition highlighting childhood trauma and sexual abuse.
However, the US Supreme Court ruled that the execution could go ahead.
Pike was the only person executed in Tennessee in the modern era of US capital punishment for a crime committed during their teenage years