‘Poison administered twice’: U.S. death-row inmate survives execution, regains consciousness a week later

[Financial News] A U.S. woman on death row who survived despite being given two doses of the execution drug regained consciousness a week after the execution.
According to the Associated Press and other outlets on the 6th (local time), Christa Pike, 50, who survived an execution by lethal injection at a prison in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 30 and was taken to a hospital, regained consciousness and was able to speak that day, her attorneys said.
Pike is currently receiving intensive care in the hospital. Her legal team said she is restrained to her bed with handcuffs and shackles despite suffering serious injuries to both arms.
Her attorneys described Pike’s recovery as “medically unprecedented” and said, “Her prognosis is uncertain, but we expect her recovery to take a long time.”
Pike was sentenced to death for murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer with her boyfriend in 1995, when Pike was 18, and spent more than 30 years in prison.
The execution was carried out using pentobarbital, a lethal drug. The drug had previously been officially adopted for federal executions during the first Trump administration.
The Joe Biden administration later imposed a full moratorium on federal executions and, in January 2025, ended the use of pentobarbital in executions, saying it could cause unnecessary pain and suffering to death-row inmates. However, the second Trump administration reapproved the drug’s use last April.
After Pike survived the execution, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee ordered a comprehensive independent investigation to determine what happened and said he would put additional executions scheduled for this year on hold.
Frank Strada, the state corrections commissioner responsible for executions, announced his resignation.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit, Pike is believed to be the first known case of someone surviving after an execution drug entered their body.
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