Tennessee Execution Staff Warned of IV Problems Before Christa Pike's Failed Execution, Filing Says

Tennessee execution team members repeatedly failed to establish working IV lines in Christa Pike's arms before her Sept. 30 execution attempt and warned some veins may have ruptured, her attorney Randy Spivey wrote in a court document filed Thursday. He wrote that staff used about 10 needles across several sites on both arms and struggled to push saline through the last line. Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer, killed when Pike was 18. State protocol calls for a second dose if the first fails but does not address surviving the second. Pike spent several days on a ventilator, regained consciousness and returned to prison.

Right-leaning outlets had not reported the story at the time of writing; left-leaning and alternative/independent outlets had. HuffPost, on the left, details the filing's IV problems, protocol gaps, Pike's recovery and renewed scrutiny of Tennessee's methods. AP and NewsNation, the alternative outlets, lead on the warning that an IV site may have ruptured, and NewsNation also stresses she survived two doses.