Christa Pike, the sole woman on Tennessee’s death row, survived two doses of pentobarbital during her execution attempt on September 30th, prompting a series of confused 911 calls and a 30-minute delay in receiving medical care. The first 911 call, placed from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution at 8:40 p.m. CT, reported that Pike was still alive approximately one hour after the lethal injection began, describing labored and slow breathing. A transcript of the call revealed the caller stating, “The person is not yet deceased,” and confirming the administration of 10 grams of pentobarbital. Kelly Gleason, one of Pike’s attorneys, also called 911, stating Pike was “still alive and breathing, and needs immediate life-saving care,” noting she was unconscious and snoring. Initial responses from dispatchers were uncertain, with one dispatcher initially believing the call to be a false alarm. After approximately 30 minutes of miscommunication and verification, emergency responders were authorized to enter the prison. Pike was hospitalized, placed on a ventilator, and later discharged, suffering burns and a blood clot as a result of the drugs apparently pooling in her tissue. She has since been returned to prison. Pike was convicted in 1995 of torturing and murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, carving a satanic pentagram into her chest and taking a piece of her skull as a souvenir, motivated by romantic jealousy. The Death Penalty Information Center called the failed execution “the worst we’ve ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era.” The Tennessee Department of Correction has not released details on why the execution failed.
Left-leaning coverage emphasized Pike’s suffering and the concerns raised by her attorneys about the potential for pain, while right-leaning coverage focused on the brutality of the crime for which she was convicted and the delay in medical response. Not in dispute is that Pike survived a lethal injection, an unprecedented event in the modern era.
Our reading is that the 911 calls reveal a significant degree of confusion and delay in responding to a clearly emergent medical situation following the attempted execution. The differing coverage highlights a predictable pattern: left-leaning outlets prioritize the suffering of the condemned, while right-leaning outlets emphasize the severity of the original crime. The fact that this event is described as “unprecedented” suggests a failure not just of this specific execution, but of the established protocols surrounding lethal injection.
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