Emergency medical personnel were delayed for approximately half an hour following the failed lethal injection of death row inmate Christa Pike due to widespread confusion between dispatchers and prison staff, according to recordings and transcripts released Monday by Nashville emergency authorities.
The Nashville Department of Emergency Communications made the records public after reviewing the Sept. 30 incident at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. The materials, first obtained by The Associated Press, detail how first responders were repeatedly held back as personnel attempted to confirm whether a call from inside the execution chamber was legitimate.
Confusion over verification codes
The initial call reached dispatchers at 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30, according to an agency transcript. An unidentified caller reported that staff had been administering an execution that began roughly an hour earlier and had injected 10 grams of pentobarbital, but the inmate had not died and required an ambulance.
When the dispatcher asked for a security verification code, the caller stated they did not have one, ABC News reported. The lack of an authorization code prompted dispatchers to contact multiple agencies to confirm the crisis, including the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Nashville Fire Department and Tennessee Department of Correction Central Control.
Minutes ticked by as officials questioned the authenticity of the request. At 9:03 p.m., an unidentified emergency worker said supervisory personnel had deemed the alert a false call and indicated no medical assistance was required at the prison, CBS News reported. Prison Central Control also told dispatchers around that time that none of their facility staff had initiated the emergency call.
Standoff at the gates
Despite the initial dismissal, confusion escalated outside the facility. At 9:07 p.m., a responder reported that someone claiming to be a state official was waiting at the prison entrance, demanding that medical crews enter because the emergency was real.
Around the same time, Kelly Gleason, an attorney representing Pike with the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender, dialed 911 directly. Gleason warned dispatchers that Pike was still breathing, unconscious, and in need of immediate life-saving medical intervention, ABC News reported.
Emergency medical crews remained unable to pass through the perimeter without law enforcement on the scene. Prison officials finally verified the emergency and allowed responders to pass through the facility gates at 9:11 p.m., roughly 31 minutes after the initial call for help, according to dispatch logs.
Survival and state inquiry
Pike, 50, was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and placed on a ventilator. She is the only known person in the U.S. to survive an execution after the lethal injection drugs were administered, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Her legal team noted that she was initially feared to be brain dead, but she regained consciousness nearly a week later, started speaking and walking with assistance, and was returned over the weekend to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. Her attorneys reported that she suffered from pneumonia, a blood clot, burns on her arms from the drug, and cognitive difficulties following the failed procedure.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. She was scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries after the U.S. Supreme Court declined a last-minute appeal to stay the execution.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has ordered a temporary pause on all scheduled executions across the state, while Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada announced his resignation earlier this month. The governor appointed former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to direct an independent review into what occurred. State correction officials have not yet explained why the lethal injection drugs failed to work, and it remains unknown whether Tennessee will attempt to execute Pike again in the future.
