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US death row inmate Krista Pike has regained consciousness and is able to speak after an unsuccessful attempt to execute her last week, according to her lawyers.
In a statement on Tuesday, Pike’s lawyers said the 50-year-old is still receiving treatment in hospital while shackled to a bed.
According to the BBC, Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Two attempts to execute her by lethal injection failed last Wednesday in Tennessee, after which she was taken to hospital. She remained unconscious for several days as medical staff worked to remove the chemicals that had been administered to her.
Experts and her lawyers have described her recovery as unprecedented. Pike is believed to be the only person in the world to have survived after lethal-injection drugs were administered during an attempted execution.
Her lawyers described her improving condition as “medically unprecedented.” They said it was still too early to determine her long-term physical condition, but they were hopeful that she would undergo a prolonged recovery.
Deborah Denno, a criminologist and professor at Fordham Law School, said she was surprised to learn that Pike had regained consciousness and was speaking.
Denno said there had been seven other cases in which inmates survived after their scheduled execution times had passed. However, in those cases, executioners failed to inject any drugs into the inmates’ veins. Pike, she said, was the only person to have toxic substances actually administered into her body.
“They did everything they were supposed to do as part of the execution process,” Denno said. “But it didn’t work. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
Authorities have not yet said whether they will make another attempt to execute Pike. They have also not explained why the execution failed after she was administered the drug pentobarbital.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has suspended all executions in the state for the remainder of this year.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Ship, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer in 1995. The three had met at a job-training camp for troubled teenagers.
Pike’s lawyers are scheduled to appear in court in Nashville on Wednesday and plan to hold a news conference outside the courthouse.
Dr Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist serving as an adviser to Pike’s defence team, said Tuesday that the chances of surviving a lethal injection are extremely low. Source: BBC Online.