Pike Receiving 'Lifesaving Care' After Botched Execution

Christa Pike is in critical condition but receiving "lifesaving care" at a hospital, her lawyers said Thursday, a day after she survived a failed attempt to execute her for a 1995 murder during what Tennessee's governor called a "deeply disturbing" procedure. Pike was taken to the hospital Wednesday night after she received a double dose of the drug Tennessee uses to execute prisoners but survived. Her lawyers said they were told her condition is critical, but they didn't know specifics, the AP reports.

• "Christa is alive right now. We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment," attorney Randy Spivey said during a news conference. "But we know she is alive right now and receiving lifesaving medical care." He added: "Last night was not just inefficient, it was cruel and it was torturous. It was also predictable."

Attorney Steve Ferrell said Pike feared there would be complications with the lethal injection because of a lifelong blood disorder that made it tough to get needles into her veins. "Throughout her life, she's explained to us that she had trouble having blood drawn," Ferrell said. Spivey said he counted at least seven needles that were used in her left arm alone. "Ms. Pike was not just cooperative but was helping to instruct the people placing the IV lines" as to where they might put them, Spivey said. "She told them over and over, please try higher on my shoulder." Pike's lawyers said the failed execution amounted to "torture," and they called for her death sentence to be commuted.

Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike experienced is "singular and unparalleled" in that she survived long enough to be moved to a hospital. Nashville attorney David Raybin says the hospital will be legally required to do what it can to restore the 50-year-old's health, the Tennessean reports. "She is a patient like any other and a hospital would have a legal obligation to treat her and (attempt) to keep her from enduring any pain and restore her to health," Raybin says. "She was sentenced to be executed by the State of Tennessee. The hospital is not bound by that order. They can't facilitate her death."