NASHVILLE — US death row inmate Christa Pike was in critical condition Thursday and receiving “lifesaving care” at a hospital, her lawyers said, a day after a failed attempt to execute her pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions this year and order an independent review.Pike, 50, who was sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, was taken to a hospital Wednesday night after surviving a double dose of the lethal drug Tennessee uses to execute prisoners.”Christa is alive right now. We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now and receiving life-saving medical care,” said Randy Spivey, an attorney with the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender.The legal team for Pike — the first woman the state planned to execute in 200 years — called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence.The failed execution, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led the Republican governor to order a review, calling what happened “deeply disturbing” and indefinitely postponing Pike’s execution and another one that had been scheduled for this year.It also reignited the debate over the state’s execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections.Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is running for governor of Tennessee, spoke out about the botched execution attempt on social media Thursday, calling on the state to bring back the electric chair.Witnesses to the execution said late Wednesday that authorities appeared to administer two rounds of lethal pentobarbitol but that the convicted murderer appeared to still be breathing an hour later when witnesses were escorted out of the chamber.”I’ve witnessed five executions in Tennessee. Nothing about today was normal, typical — at all,” said reporter Tori Gessner with ABC Nashville affiliate WKRN, who was one of several journalists who witnessed the proceedings.Multiple witnesses said they could hear Pike breathing and snoring very loudly after the drugs were administered, even after the curtains were closed on the execution chamber.Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.Her attempted execution on Wednesday was the subject of a last-minute legal battle. This culminated in the US Supreme Court allowing the lethal injections to go ahead.Slemmer’s mother May Martinez, who was among those who wanted the execution to take place and who travelled to Tennessee to witness it, told NBC News after the botched attempt that “it was a mess”.On Thursday afternoon, Pike’s lawyers offered more details about what happened during the attempted execution, describing a harrowing scene shrouded in secrecy.”Last night, the execution team attempted to establish an IV line for an hour,” Spivey said. “I counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone, one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt.”Spivey said that observers were kept in a dark room behind a closed curtain, after the second lethal dose had been administered and “it was clear that Miss Pike was still breathing” minutes later.”No-one knew what was going on behind that curtain,” Spivey said. “I had no idea when and if medical professionals began to assist.”The Tennessee Department of Correction, which handled the execution, issued a statement defending its handling of the case.It said in a statement that it “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the attorney general’s office”.”The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.”
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