Christa Pike may now be ‘too sick’ to be executed, says anesthesiology expert

Christa Pike survived two failed lethal injection attempts on Wednesday, and a medical expert says she may now be too sick to ever be executed.

Christa Pike, 50, was set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years. The execution was supposed to happen on September 30, but she is still alive.

The execution team spent over an hour struggling to get an IV line into her arm, and two attempts to administer the lethal injection failed.

According to her lawyer, Randy Spivey, at least seven needles were used on her left arm alone. One of them even came out bent after a failed insertion. Witnesses said Pike was thrashing while strapped to the gurney, then breathing, snoring, looking around.

Her execution had already been granted a stay earlier that day. The Supreme Court overturned it hours later, however, putting her back on the gurney that evening.

Pike is currently being treated at an off-site medical facility.

Anesthesiologist says none of this should have come as a surprise
Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist who openly opposes the death penalty and told The Sun no aspect of how Pike’s execution went down should come as a surprise.

“These things were predictable. I knew that they would happen. I called that they would happen and they happened,” he said

I can tell you that all the things that I warn about, that I’ve written in the past, have all come to fruition in the case of Christa Pike.”

Placing an IV correctly is a real medical skill, and because doctors and nurses are barred by professional ethics from taking part in executions, the job falls to staff with no formal training in it.

“Placing an intravenous catheter is a specific technical skill that is practised by people in healthcare. It’s not something that translates into the execution chamber,” he said.

That failure, he says, may now carry legal weight.

“If Christa Pike’s health should be such a thing that it can never be restored to some degree, then she may not face [execution] again,” Zivot said.

“If the death penalty goes wrong, which it has done in this case, it becomes the duty of the state to restore the prisoner to health. So they’re bound to do it.”

The harm the failed attempts may have caused Pike
Zivot believes the pentobarbital likely never made it into Pike’s bloodstream at all.

“She very likely has a significant burn on one or both arms from the pentobarbital that I expect went into the tissues and not into the circulation,” he said

Spivey said Pike’s arms are showing blistering and burning, Zivot says she may need skin grafts. She might also need cardiac care, since the ordeal could have left her with a weakened heart.

Pike is unfortunately not the only person this has happened to recently. As recently as in May, Tony Carruthers’ execution was called off because officials simply couldn’t establish IV access.

Governor Bill Lee has ordered a full pause on every execution in Tennessee for the rest of the year, pending an independent review