Christa Pike regains consciousness after failed execution in Tennessee

The Insider, citing Pike’s lawyers, reported that 50-year-old Christa Pike has regained consciousness and can speak. She is currently continuing treatment in the hospital, where she is being held in handcuffs.

After the failed execution, Pike remained unconscious for several days. According to her defense team, recovery is going poorly, and they believe she faces a long period of treatment ahead.

Last Wednesday in Tennessee, Pike survived two failed lethal injection attempts. She was supposed to become the first woman executed in the state in the last 200 years.

Pike was sentenced to death for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when Pike herself was 18. She did not deny involvement in the murder, and her lawyers spent many years seeking to overturn the sentence, citing, among other things, sexual abuse in childhood and mental disorders.

Lawyers and doctors call this case unprecedented. Pike is believed to be the only person to have survived a lethal injection, although similar cases have been linked to the drugs not being successfully administered into a vein.

After the failed execution, Tennessee authorities suspended all executions in the state. The defense also asked the governor to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment; it is still unclear whether the execution attempt will be repeated.

Sources

• Material: theins.ru