Tennessee court filing details failed Pike IV

A court document filed in Tennessee reveals that execution team members used approximately 10 needles and warned that Christa Pike's veins might have ruptured before injecting her with lethal drugs. The filing provides the most detailed account yet of the September 30 attempt to put Pike to death.

Attorney Randy Spivey wrote that the intravenous team struggled to establish working lines in Pike's arms. They began their attempts at 6:34 p.m. An IV was placed in her right arm within six minutes. The left arm required nearly an hour of work. Spivey noted that the team had trouble pushing saline through the final site they established.

Pike, 50, was convicted in the 1995 stabbing death of Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 at the time of the crime and became one of the youngest women sentenced to death in the state. Tennessee protocol requires a second dose of pentobarbital if the first fails. The state has not defined the procedure for when a prisoner survives that second dose.

Spivey described Pike as wincing and grimacing while staff moved needles in her left arm. At 6:57 p.m., one team member said a vein might be blowing. Two others could not tell. At 7:07 p.m., another member said, "I think it's blown." The group declared the IV successfully placed at 7:13 p.m. Phone calls to the execution chamber started five minutes later.

Pike reported that her arm burned and felt like it was about to burst at 7:34 p.m. She made an agitated snoring sound about 10 minutes later. Over the next 30 minutes, she strained and struggled to breathe. Spivey asked to use a phone but was led on a seven-minute walk through the facility instead of being allowed to use the witness room phone. At 8:22 p.m., he called colleagues to halt the execution, noting that a third dose is not authorized.

Spivey was told an ambulance was en route at 8:50 p.m. Medical staff began life-saving measures about 20 minutes later. An ambulance arrived at the hospital at 9:14 p.m. Pike was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator for several days. She has since returned to prison.

The filing supports a separate lawsuit challenging Tennessee's lethal injection procedures. Attorney Kit Thomas, who represents other death row inmates, said the case proved predictions of botched executions. "Our predictions about the likelihood of botched executions have come true, and will continue to come true, without substantial change," Thomas said.