Witnesses in Tennessee watched on in horror as Christa Pike survived two doses of the lethal drug
An expert has raised an alarm over the drugs used in the botched execution of Christa Pike.
Pike remains in critical condition after surviving two doses of pentobarbital. A horrified witness said she was still snoring when the execution chamber's microphone was switched off more than an hour into the procedure. Pike, convicted and sentenced to death for a 1995 killing, was rushed to a hospital Wednesday night after surviving a double dose of the drug Tennessee administers to execute inmates.
Speaking to News 2, Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist hired by Pike’s legal team, suggested something was wrong with the drugs. He said: “This poison will kill, and if it got into her in how they intended it to, she would have died." The Tennessee Department of Corrections has not revealed how the execution failed and has not revealed how much pentobarbital Pike was injected with.
“If she did in fact get two syringes full and her IVs did not blow and she did not die, then I would say, ‘She still doesn’t have some magical power to resist pentobarbital,’” he said. “I would say, ‘This just isn’t pentobarbital, or it was so ineffective that it didn’t cause her to die.’”
Dr Zivot was speaking from his expertise in the field of drug administration but hadn't tested the pentobarbital used on Pike.
“Is the pentobarbital itself not potent? Degraded? Is it not pentobarbital at all? Is it Kool-Aid?” Zivot asked. “Who knows what it is?”
Zivot described Pike as a “hard stick,” a term used when a person’s veins are difficult to access. He said Pike also has a blood disorder that can increase the risk of clotting.
Pike’s attorneys have said witnesses saw problems with her intravenous lines during the execution. Zivot believes a catheter may have moved outside a vein or that the vein itself may have ruptured.
“The catheter was seemingly no longer in the vein, or the vein itself that had the catheter had ruptured,” Zivot said. “So now the pentobarbital that was injected, instead of traveling along the vein and entering the central circulation, it just spilled out.“
The execution team spent a full hour attempting to administer the lethal drugs, said attorney Randy Spivey, who counted at least seven needles in her left arm.
During the struggle to locate a vein, Pike even directed the team to potential sites herself.
"Please try here, please try here," Spivey recalled her saying. "She told them over and over, please try higher on my shoulder."
At one point Pike questioned prison staff about whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did, though it remains uncertain if this occurred after the first dose was delivered, as officials do not disclose such details.
Zivot described Pike as a “hard stick,” a term used when a person’s veins are difficult to find. He believes the catheter used to administer the drugs may have become dislodged or that her vein could have ruptured.
The botched execution, which one capital punishment expert called unprecedented, prompted Republican Gov. Bill Lee to demand a review, describing the events as "deeply disturbing" while indefinitely postponing Pike's execution and another scheduled for later this year.
Spivey condemned the process as cruel and torturous, stating he was "haunted" by witnessing Pike talking, singing, and then snoring loudly throughout her more than 90 minutes strapped in the death chamber. Her legal team also raised concerns that she may have sustained brain damage due to oxygen deprivation.
May Martinez, whose daughter was murdered by Pike and her boyfriend, and who had traveled to Nashville to witness the execution, was equally distressed by the outcome. "I didn't get justice for my daughter," Martinez said.
"I watched the whole thing. She was awake. She was laughing. She was moving her head, moving her feet. She was trying to sit up," Martinez added "Didn't work the first time they gave her a shot. It didn't work the second time."