{"id":226401,"date":"2026-10-03T08:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/christa-pike-unconscious-and-on-a-ventilator-at-nashville-hospital-her-lawyers-say-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T08:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:30:15","slug":"christa-pike-unconscious-and-on-a-ventilator-at-nashville-hospital-her-lawyers-say-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/christa-pike-unconscious-and-on-a-ventilator-at-nashville-hospital-her-lawyers-say-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Christa Pike unconscious and on a ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Christa Pike, the woman who survived an execution attempt in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, her lawyers said in a new statement Friday.
She is unconscious, intubated and breathing through a ventilator. The death row inmate is also being treated for \u201csignificant injuries to both arms\u201d sustained when two lethal injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her.
At one point, Pike said it felt like her arm was exploding, and she could be heard whimpering, according to her legal team.
\u201cWe are working closely with those closest to Christa to respect her wishes, safeguard her privacy and protect her rights as a patient during this extraordinarily difficult time,\u201d attorney Luke Ihnen said in a statement. \u201cWe ask that the public and the media respect that privacy as well.\u201d
The state of Tennessee attempted to put Pike to death Wednesday night by lethal injection for a murder she committed when she was 18.
Pike, now 50, has been on death row for decades and would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.
NBC News earlier reported<\/a> that there was no emergency medical oxygen in the execution room in case something went wrong. Medical professionals had to retrieve it from elsewhere.
Pike\u2019s attorneys detailed her condition in a new emergency motion filed Friday asking the state to preserve all evidence from the failed execution attempt.
\u201cIn the words of one media witness: we have a lot of questions and the Department of Correction has a lot of answers that it needs to provide to the public about what happened here. We agree,\u201d the motion reads.
In their filing, the lawyers described a painful and chaotic scene that unfolded in front of several witnesses, and that they said could have been prevented with the proper care and training.
Medical staff failed to follow basic protocol, like ensuring the needles used were fresh, functional and inserted properly, according to the motion. Further, the state did not heed Pike\u2019s concerns prior to the procedure that preexisting medical conditions could make lethal injection difficult to complete, the motion says.
The motion accuses the department of corrections of \u201cinflicting a cruel and unusual punishment on Ms. Pike through its deliberate indifference to her basic medical needs and reckless disregard of basic medical practices and their own lethal injection protocol.\u201d
The Tennessee Attorney General did not immediately return a request for comment on the new filing. A spokesperson for the state department of corrections said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
At a news conference Thursday, Stephen Ferrell and another of Pike\u2019s attorneys, Randall Spivey, detailed how the execution attempt went wrong<\/a>. Spivey, who was in the room, recalled Pike saying she was in pain, and like she felt like her arm was about to \u201cexplode.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to be a cruel and an unusual execution,\u201d criminologist Deborah Denno told NBC News. \u201cThe goal is to kill somebody, but to kill them within means or in a reasonable way, where there\u2019s not going to be pain and suffering.\u201d
According to Friday\u2019s filing, the execution process lasted longer than two hours. Pike\u2019s legal team filed emergency motions to halt the execution in multiple courts before the prison called an ambulance.
\u201cEven then,\u201d it continues, \u201cattorneys for the State of Tennessee argued that TDOC had no obligation to render life-saving care to Ms. Pike.\u201d
NBC News contributor Dr. Natalie Azar, a rheumatologist, said the pain Pike described could be attributed to pentobarbital flowing into her arm instead of straight into her veins. That would be painful with any medication, Azar said, but the specific properties of pentobarbital would make the experience exceptionally uncomfortable.
The scenario would also result in Pike being administered a less-than-lethal dose. It was enough to suppress her respiratory system but not enough to kill her, Azar explained. The question of how long Pike\u2019s brain was deprived on oxygen will be central to her prognosis.
\u201cThere is no reversal of pentobarbital. There is no medicine or antidote,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have to basically wait for the liver to metabolize the drug and get it out of your system.\u201d
Pike was convicted in the 1995 murder case. She and two other teenage accomplices worked together to torture, slash and fatally beat Colleen Slemmer, Knoxville police said at the time.<\/a> Pike was sentenced to death. A number of last-minute legal efforts to stop Pike\u2019s execution were unsuccessful.
Jesse Kirsch is a correspondent based in Miami reporting across all NBC News platforms.
Rebecca Cohen is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
Abigail Brooks is a producer for NBC News.
Alicia Victoria Lozano is a California-based reporter for NBC News focusing on climate change, wildfires and the changing politics of drug laws.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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For YouSettings news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeChrista Pike, the woman who survived an execution attempt in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, her lawyers said in a new statement Friday. She is unconscious, intubated and breathing through a ventilator. The death row inmate is also being treated for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}