Execution staff warned IV site might have ‘blown’ during Christa Pike’s execution attempt

Tennessee execution team members failed multiple times to establish working IV lines in Christa Pike’s arms before her attempted execution and warned that some of her veins may have ruptured, or “blown,” before she was injected with pentobarbital, her attorney wrote in a court document filed Thursday.

The IV team went through about 10 needles and tried several IV sites on both arms, attorney Randy Spivey wrote in the document. They even struggled to push saline through the last IV site they established, Spivey wrote.

Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state tried to execute her on Sept. 30 for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 when she tortured and killed Slemmer with her boyfriend, becoming one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death.

State protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first doesn’t result in death, but it doesn’t spell out what to do if a person survives the second injection.

After being taken to a hospital, Pike was on a ventilator for several days. At one point, her attorneys did not expect her to survive. She ultimately regained consciousness and returned to prison after being discharged.

The failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences.