Christa Pike is awake and speaking days after failed execution, attorneys say

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT/Gray News) -- Christa Pike is awake and speaking days after her failed Tennessee execution, according to her attorneys.

Pike was supposed to be executed via lethal injection in Tennessee last Wednesday.

However, after receiving two doses of what should have been lethal amounts of pentobarbital, she survived.

The failed execution had left her unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital.

Dr. Paul Allen, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, said the needle never properly made it into her vein; when it came to the reason he believed what may have gone wrong with the execution.

Pike, 50, was 18 when authorities say she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.

The head of Tennessee’s prison system has since resigned following the botched execution. Whether the state can proceed with another execution attempt remains to be seen.