Christa Pike, who survived two doses of a lethal injection drug last week during a botched execution in Tennessee, is conscious and speaking, her lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday.
Ms. Pike continues to receive critical medical care at a Nashville hospital, the lawyers said. The prognosis remains unclear, they said, but they expect a long recovery.
“Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time,” the lawyers said.
Ms. Pike, 50, is believed to be the first person to have survived doses of a lethal injection drug. She has been hospitalized since the execution attempt on Sept. 30, after it became clear to witnesses that she was still breathing after two doses of pentobarbital, the drug used in lethal injection executions.
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I live in one of the “formally suspended” states (Oregon). Capital punishment is entrenched in the state constitution, but state officials have done their darn best to get around that. The governor commutes all death sentences to life imprisonment. The execution chamber and death row were both dismantled, and the state has no way to procure the drugs needed for lethal injection, the only approved method of execution. A “temporary” moratorium has been in effect for over a decade.
There hasn’t been an execution in Oregon in almost 30 years.