“Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection a month ago, is speaking out for the first time, saying she is recovering, “but healing is not the same as being okay.” “There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt.”, — write on: www.cnn.com
Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection a month ago, is speaking out for the first time, saying she is recovering, “but healing is not the same as being okay.”
“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak,” Pike said in a written statement her attorneys say was dictated to them. “And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Pike, 50, was hospitalized after she survived two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her on September 30 for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. Soon after the failed procedure, Pike was on a ventilator, and her attorneys did not expect her to survive. But she woke up and later began talking and walking with assistance.
Pike said she was “prepared to die” by execution, but instead “woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain,” according to the statement.
It’s the first public comment attributed to Pike since the botched execution. She is the only person to ever survive being injected with lethal chemicals in an execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The failure to execute Pike upset Slemmer’s family, who previously said the attention on Pike’s condition has taken attention away from the victim.
“I think the state owes me a big apology,” May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, told CNN affiliate WTLV a few weeks ago. Pike was returned to prison earlier this month after a 10-day hospitalization and has continued receiving medical care, according to her lawyers.
“Since that night, I have been largely isolated in the prison’s medical ward, away from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me,” Pike said in Friday’s statement. “That isolation brings its own kind of pain. I spent 28 years in solitary confinement and much of what I am experiencing today is a repeat of that condition.”
Pike’s attorneys filed an emergency motion on Friday requesting she be removed from “indefinite isolation in the prison infirmary,” where she’s been “cut off from all other inmates” since she was discharged from the hospital earlier this month.
The attorneys said the state of Tennessee is violating the 2024 settlement agreement allowing Pike to work, eat, socialize and exercise alongside other women in the general population at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
“State officials have kept her alone in the prison infirmary, cut off from all other women in custody and with no expected end date for her isolation,” Angie Bergman, Brian Roark and Hannah Webber, Pike’s lawyers, said in a statement. “Despite repeated warnings that this conduct not only harms Ms. Pike but is in direct violation of the clear terms of the Settlement Agreement, the State has failed to make any accommodations or engage in any attempt at a meaningful resolution.”
The emergency motion asked for the settlement agreement to be enforced and for an end to “her indefinite isolation” and for accommodation for “group meals, recreation, work and other social interaction,” according to the federal court filing.
“The motion was filed on an emergency basis because each day of continued isolation causes further harm to Ms. Pike,” the attorneys said in the statement.
The Tennessee Department of Correction doesn’t comment on pending litigation as agency policy, a spokesperson said.
The state Attorney General’s Office didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s email request for comment.
Pike is fighting what will likely be a protracted legal battle to prevent a second attempt to put her to death. Her attorneys filed a complaint in January seeking to delay her execution because of the state’s new lethal injection protocol, saying it was untested and “sure or very likely to result in unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace.”
“The new protocol does not provide for any life saving measures, in violation of the Plaintiffs rights under the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution in the event that the execution fails,” Pike’s legal team warned at the time.
Pike’s legal team has asked a judge to amend their complaint to reflect what happened to her on September 30. On Thursday, the court ruled Pike has until late January to make a new filing, giving her extra time due to her current medical condition.
In the immediate aftermath of the botched execution, Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee ordered an investigation into what went wrong in the death chamber and indefinitely postponed another execution scheduled this year.
Earlier this month, Lee announced state Correction Commissioner Frank Strada would step down following the backlash after the attempted execution.
On Friday, the governor’s office said Christopher Hansen would serve as the interim commissioner of the state Department of Correction effective immediately, while also keeping his current duties as assistant commissioner of community supervision.
“Chris Hansen is a committed public servant with decades of experience in corrections and public safety,” Lee said in a statement. “His knowledge of the Tennessee Department of Correction makes him uniquely qualified to lead, and I am grateful for his willingness to serve Tennesseans during this transition.”
Lee is not inclined to commute Pike’s sentence and take the death penalty off the table, he told reporters this week in Nashville.
“She’s still incarcerated under the laws of the State of Tennessee,” Lee said, according to CNN affiliate WSMV. “I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Eduardo Cuevas and Avni Trivedi contributed to this report.