Court Filing Details Failed IV Attempts Before Pike's Lethal Injection

Tennessee prison staff used roughly 10 needles and repeatedly failed to secure working IV lines in Christa Pike's arms before administering a lethal drug, according to an attorney's court filing submitted Thursday. The document offers the most detailed account yet of the state's September 30 attempt to carry out Pike's sentence.

Attorney Randy Spivey wrote that the execution team tried several sites on both arms and cautioned that some veins might have ruptured, or "blown," before the first dose of pentobarbital was pushed. He said the team could not even get saline to flow through the final IV site they established.

Pike, 50, was convicted in the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 at the time and became one of the youngest women ever sentenced to death in Tennessee.

Spivey's account shows how long the process took. The team began attempting to place the two IV lines required by state protocol at 6:34 p.m. A line went into Pike's right arm in about six minutes. Her left arm took nearly an hour. Pike helped by directing staff to her upper arm to look for a usable vein. Spivey wrote that she was "wincing and grimacing" as team members moved needles around in that arm.

At 6:57 p.m., one team member said a vein "might be blowing," though two others said they could not tell. A later needle appeared severely bent when removed. By 7:07 p.m., a team member said, "I think it's blown." Staff determined at 7:13 p.m. that a line had been established in her left arm.

Phone calls to the execution chamber began about five minutes later. At 7:34 p.m., Pike said, "I feel like my arm is about to bust. It burns." About 10 minutes later, after speaking with her spiritual adviser, she began making what Spivey described as an "agitated snoring sound." Over the next 30 minutes, Pike strained, flinched, moved her head and appeared to struggle to breathe.

Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized. Tennessee's protocol calls for a second dose if the first does not cause death, but it does not specify what happens if a person survives that second injection. Pike was placed on a ventilator for several days, and her attorneys did not expect her to live at one point. She regained consciousness and has since been discharged and returned to prison.

Spivey was not permitted to use the phone in the witness room when he sought to halt the process. He said he was routed through the facility for seven minutes before reaching a phone. At 8:22 p.m., he called fellow attorneys to request that the execution stop, noting that a third dose is not authorized under state protocol, and then told the deputy attorney general that Pike needed immediate medical care.

At 8:50 p.m., Spivey was told an ambulance was on the way. About 20 minutes later, he was told medical staff were performing life-saving measures. An ambulance was seen arriving at the hospital at 9:14 p.m. The filing was submitted in a separate case in which people on Tennessee's death row challenge the state's lethal injection procedures. Kit Thomas, an attorney representing those plaintiffs, said, "Our predictions about the likelihood of botched executions have come true, and will continue to come true, without substantial change."