Christa Pike has been released from hospital and is back in prison, 10 days after surviving Tennessee’s lethal injection attempt.
Her attorneys confirmed on Saturday that the 50-year-old was taken back to Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has lived for about 30 years.
Pike’s lawyers said she is thankful to the first responders and her medical team for their care during these “extraordinary circumstances,” and that her recovery will be monitored.
She was supposed to be executed on September 30 for the 1995 killing of her classmate Colleen Slemmer. Instead, she survived after being injected with the deadly pentobarbital twice.
She is the first known person in the United States to survive an execution after receiving the lethal injection drugs, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.
After the botched execution, Pike was left unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator. Her lawyers later reported that she had been injured while they were trying to get intravenous access, such as burns and blisters on her arms.
She had however recovered by earlier this week, when she was able to talk and walk again,though one of her lawyers said it was not known how much permanent damage she had suffered.
The botched execution has already had significant repercussions in Tennessee. State corrections commissioner Frank Strada resigned days later, and Governor Bill Lee halted all other executions in Tennessee for the remainder of 2026 and called for an independent investigation into the problem.
2026-10-10 21:56:00
