NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Members of Tennessee’s execution team repeatedly questioned whether Christa Pike’s veins had ruptured before injecting her with a lethal drug during an execution attempt that failed last month, according to court documents filed Thursday.
The account, provided in a sworn statement by Pike’s attorney Randy Spivey, describes a prolonged and chaotic effort to insert an intravenous line into the 50-year-old death row inmate on Sept. 30. Executioners went through approximately 10 needles across both of Pike’s arms and voiced doubts about whether they had secured an operational vein before administering the sedative pentobarbital, Spivey stated in records reported by ABC News and The Guardian.
Nearly an Hour of Failed Insertions
Spivey, who witnessed the procedure inside the death chamber, outlined a minute-by-minute timeline of the execution attempt. The medical team began trying to set an intravenous line at 6:35 p.m. and spent nearly an hour struggling to establish access, according to the filing.
About 20 minutes into the process, team members began discussing among themselves whether Pike’s vein was blowing, Spivey stated. Two unidentified staff members pressed on the puncture area and acknowledged they could not determine if they had found a usable vein. According to Spivey, one worker remarked, “It’s either blood or blown, I need to know.”
Workers discarded a 20-gauge needle after deciding it was too short and asked for longer equipment, the declaration said. Minutes later, a staff member withdrew another needle from Pike’s left arm after discovering it had become severely bent. Personnel also faced resistance while attempting to flush saline through the final site they chose, according to the court filing.
At 7:13 p.m., a team member informed Pike they were ready to proceed. Pentobarbital was introduced, but Pike did not succumb to the drug. At 7:34 p.m., she cried out, “I feel like my arm is about to bust. It burns,” Spivey wrote. Observers heard Pike making snoring and choking noises, leading officials to halt the procedure.
Surviving the Chamber
The disclosures support theories that the pentobarbital seeped into surrounding arm tissue rather than traveling directly into Pike’s bloodstream, which would have delivered a lethal outcome. Pike received two doses of the chemical under state guidelines, but Tennessee regulations offer no instructions on how to handle an inmate who survives a second injection, ABC News reported.
Pike was transported to a hospital and remained on a ventilator for several days while suffering from pneumonia, severe swelling, and a blood clot in her arm, her defense team told OK! Magazine. After 10 days of medical care, she was discharged and returned to a Nashville prison facility.
Her attorneys reported that Pike has recently regained the ability to speak in full sentences and can walk with greater independence, though her long-term cognitive and physical health remains undetermined.
Pike was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Pike was 18 years old at the time of the crime, making her one of the youngest women sent to death row in modern U.S. history.
Mounting Legal Scrutiny
Spivey’s eyewitness declaration was submitted in Davidson County Chancery Court as part of a lawsuit led by fellow death row prisoner Tony Carruthers. Tennessee authorities attempted to execute Carruthers on May 21, but officials called off the procedure after workers spent over 30 minutes failing to establish an intravenous line, The Guardian reported.
Attorneys representing the death row plaintiffs argued that state officials ignored warnings filed in early 2025 that cautioned execution personnel lacked sufficient training to carry out lethal injections safely and humanely.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee has halted all executions across Tennessee through at least the end of the year while the state conducts an internal review of its capital punishment procedures.
