---
title: "Christa Pike, Who Outlived Tennessee’s Lethal Injection, Is Back in Her Nashville Prison"
description: "Ten days after two doses of pentobarbital failed to kill her, the state has not said what went wrong or whether it will try again"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-10-11T14:11:17.447Z
modified: 2026-10-11T17:43:12Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/christa-pike-who-survived-two-lethal-doses-is-back-in-her-te-57f0b1
language: en
tags: ["death-penalty", "texas", "military", "prison", "politics", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Christa Pike, Who Outlived Tennessee’s Lethal Injection, Is Back in Her Nashville Prison

*Ten days after two doses of pentobarbital failed to kill her, the state has not said what went wrong or whether it will try again*

By Jan Sokol · October 11, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/christa-pike-who-survived-two-lethal-doses-is-back-in-her-te-57f0b1

## In brief

- Christa Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital on 10 October and returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center
- She survived two doses of pentobarbital on 30 September, the first person known to survive receiving lethal injection drugs
- Her lawyers say at least seven needles were used and the IV lines were not correctly placed; the state says it followed protocol
- Pike regained consciousness on 6 October and was walking with assistance by 8 October
- Gov. Bill Lee ordered a third-party review and paused executions; the state has not ruled out a second attempt

On Saturday, 10 October, a hospital discharged a woman the state of Tennessee had tried to kill, and she went back to the place where the state has held her for three decades. Christa Pike, 50, is again at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, the women’s prison where she has spent 30 years, [the Associated Press reported](https://cnn.com/2026/10/10/us/tennessee-execution-christa-pike), citing a statement from her lawyers.

The lawyers are Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen of Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, and Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason of the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender. [In a statement emailed to Newsweek](https://newsweek.com/christa-pike-released-from-hospital-after-botched-execution-12551043) they said she “is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances.” She is still being treated inside the prison, and they “will continue to track her recovery.”

So she thanked the people who saved her. The state keeps the names of the people who tried to kill her secret, as it always does.

## Ninety minutes

On 30 September, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay shortly before 6 p.m. and the execution went ahead. Asked for a final statement, Pike said she was at peace. About five minutes later she raised her head and said her arm hurt. Then she seemed to lose consciousness, but she kept breathing heavily. As [CBS News reported](https://cbsnews.com/news/christa-pike-released-hospital-back-prison-botched-execution-tennessee/), a media witness could hear her snoring loudly about an hour after the procedure began. By then two doses of pentobarbital had been given. Nearly 90 minutes in, the witnesses were taken out of the room, and an ambulance took her to a hospital.

![A watercolor illustration shows a patient's arm with an intravenous line resting on a hospital bed, the hand hanging beside blue privacy curtains.](https://rews.cc/img/71f1bac127baf563ea5e793682c46b94f8555446.webp)

Doctors use pentobarbital to treat seizures, [The Independent noted](https://independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/christa-pike-discharge-hospital-execution-tennessee-b3064615.html). In large doses it can stop a person breathing, cause heart failure and kill. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Pike is the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution. Other prisoners have lived through failed executions. [Newsweek points out](https://newsweek.com/christa-pike-four-major-questions-as-she-returns-to-death-row-12552514) that in every earlier case the attempt was stopped before any drugs began flowing.

## Seven needles

The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong. It has said only that nothing did. On the night of 30 September it stated that it had “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” that the chemical “has consistently been effective,” and that the protocol “does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.”

Her lawyers’ court filing gives a different account. It says the execution team used at least seven needles to try to get IV access, and that one came out “bent in a 90-degree angle.” It adds: “apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed.” Spivey said there was blistering and burning around the injection sites. Medical and lethal-injection experts have asked whether the drug collected in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream. Before the execution, her team had objected to the IV protocol because of her small veins and a blood condition. According to [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-discharged-from-hospital-rcna602665), they had even asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to let her be hanged instead.

On Wednesday, 7 October, a Davidson County chancery judge ordered prison officials to preserve “anything that was in the actual room.”

![A person sits hunched on a narrow bed in a bare prison cell, with large shadows of barred doors stretching across the wall and floor.](https://rews.cc/img/fbb4755ce677f2055299c80116119f3218e22196.webp)

## Waking

For days her lawyers did not expect her to live. She was on a ventilator. On 5 October, by her legal team’s later account, doctors told them she might be brain-dead and might have to be taken off life support. On 6 October, a Tuesday, she woke up and began to talk, a recovery her lawyers called “medically unprecedented.” The next day they described her as confused and angry, with heavy bruising on her arms, pneumonia and a blood clot. She remembered nothing. By 8 October she was walking “with some assistance,” her lungs were clear, she was eating a regular diet, and her arms were “healing and regaining movement and strength.”

Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiologist at Emory University retained by her defence, was cautious. “She has no memory of the execution itself,” he said. “It’s unclear to me whether she possesses a full cognitive recovery. It’s too soon to really say.” He added that he tells patients one day in bed means a week of recovery. Her lawyers wrote that she faces “the terror, pain and uncertainty of believing she was about to die.”

## January 1995

The crime is not in dispute. On 12 January 1995, Pike, then 18, her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson lured Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old fellow student at the Job Corps programme in Knoxville, into a wooded area. According to court filings cited by CBS, Pike tortured Slemmer and slashed her with a meat cleaver and a box cutter for up to an hour, on a wooded part of the University of Tennessee campus, before killing her. Pike was sentenced to death in 1996. Shipp, who was 17, got life with the possibility of parole. Peterson pleaded guilty and received probation. Pike’s supporters point to her age and the years of sexual abuse she had suffered. Had the drugs worked, she would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820.

![A wooden judge’s gavel hovers above a bitten red apple resting on a dark countertop in a watercolor illustration.](https://rews.cc/img/36e1f20122958cd87d9537909e34d46983038d43.webp)

## A review, a resignation, a promise not made

Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, said he was [“highly disappointed”](https://www.wsmv.com/2026/10/01/highly-disappointed-gov-bill-lee-says-failed-christa-pike-execution-didnt-happen-expected-tennessee/). He called what happened “deeply disturbing” and [ordered a third-party review](https://www.wsmv.com/2026/10/01/tennessees-gov-lee-orders-comprehensive-review-christa-pikes-attempted-execution-calls-off-remaining-execution/) to decide “whether the protocol was followed” and whether changes are needed so that it “continues to be lawful and effective.” He also called off the state’s only other execution scheduled this year, that of Gary Wayne Sutton on 3 December. The prison commissioner, Frank Strada, resigned. He still says the department acted “in accordance with the established protocol,” but that “stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward.”

The review’s terms deserve a careful reading. Its stated aim is a protocol that works, not an answer on whether Pike should face it a second time. Her lawyers want Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole. They say this is the usual course after a failed execution, and Tennessee [had another one in May](https://rews.cc/a/christa-pike-survives-lethal-injection-and-tennessee-weighs--fc5504) under Lee’s watch. In court on 7 October, Ihnen put it plainly: “The state has made no promises that Ms. Pike will not be subject to a future execution.”

Outside Tennessee the argument has grown. The Pentagon plans to livestream the firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, on 3 December. Hasan shot dead 13 people there in 2009. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he had not decided: “There are two thoughts: don’t show it and show it.” The same day Pope Leo wrote that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

Meanwhile, in a cell in Nashville, a woman with bruised arms is learning to walk again, and the state has not said whether it will try to kill her a second time.

## Sources

- [Christa Pike discharged from hospital and returned to Tennessee prison](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/10/christa-pike-discharged-from-hospital-and-returned-to-tennessee-prison) — aljazeera.com
- [US lethal injection survivor Christa Pike returns to prison](https://rnz.co.nz/news/world/1835514/us-lethal-injection-survivor-christa-pike-returns-to-prison) — rnz.co.nz
- [Christa Pike: Four Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row](https://newsweek.com/christa-pike-four-major-questions-as-she-returns-to-death-row-12552514) — newsweek.com
- [Christa Pike discharged from hospital 10 days after botched execution in Tennessee](https://independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/christa-pike-discharge-hospital-execution-tennessee-b3064615.html) — independent.co.uk
- [Christa Pike, who survived an execution attempt, is discharged from hospital, attorney says](https://cnn.com/2026/10/10/us/tennessee-execution-christa-pike) — cnn.com
- [Pike discharged from hospital after failed execution](https://rte.ie/news/world/2026/1010/1594856-pike-prison-execution/) — rte.ie
- [Christa Pike Released from Hospital After Botched Execution](https://newsweek.com/christa-pike-released-from-hospital-after-botched-execution-12551043) — newsweek.com
- [Christa Pike back in prison after surviving botched Tennessee execution, lawyers say](https://cbsnews.com/news/christa-pike-released-hospital-back-prison-botched-execution-tennessee/) — cbsnews.com