Tennessee IV team warned of 'blown' vein before failed Christa Pike execution, lawyer says

Tennessee execution team members failed several times to set up working intravenous lines in Christa Pike's arms before her attempted execution and warned that some of her veins might have ruptured, or "blown," before she was injected with pentobarbital. Her attorney, Randy Spivey, wrote this in a court document filed Thursday, according to CNN and ABC News. [ 2 , 3 ]

Spivey wrote that the IV team went through about 10 needles and tried several IV sites on both arms. The Guardian put the figure at up to 10 needles. Spivey also wrote that the team struggled to push saline through the last IV site they established. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

The Guardian reported that Spivey's account is a declaration released as part of separate legal proceedings and gives a minute-by-minute chronology of what he personally witnessed in the death chamber. According to that account, the team's search for a vein began at 6.35pm and was completed at 7.24pm, when the team left the chamber assuming everything was going according to plan. About 20 minutes into the attempt, team members began discussing whether the vein "might be blowing." [ 1 ]

Two unidentified team members poked the site and both agreed they could not tell whether they had found the vein. In the Guardian's account of Spivey's declaration, one of them said something like: "It's either blood or blown, I need to know." The Guardian said the account suggests the team had doubts even before the pentobarbital began to flow. [ 1 ]

Pike remained alive, making snoring and choking sounds, the Guardian reported, and the execution was eventually called off. Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital, CNN and ABC reported, as the state tried to execute her on 30 September. The Guardian said she spent 10 days in hospital before being returned to prison in Nashville, and described her as the only prisoner in modern times to survive a full dose of a lethal injection drug. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

CNN and ABC said Pike was on a ventilator for several days and that her attorneys at one point did not expect her to survive. She regained consciousness and returned to prison after being discharged. State protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first does not result in death, but it does not say what to do if a person survives the second injection. [ 2 , 3 ]

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. CNN and ABC said she was 18 when she tortured and killed Slemmer with her boyfriend, and that she became one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death. They also said the failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences. [ 2 , 3 ]