Responders Didn't Believe Call to Help Christa Pike Was Real

Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed by confusion among first responders and Tennessee prison officials after the injection she was given last month failed to kill her, according to 911 dispatch recordings reviewed by the AP. The recordings show that crucial minutes elapsed as officials and responders tried to figure out whether a request for emergency help in the execution chamber was legitimate. The first call came in at 8:40pm Sept. 30, and it was about a half-hour before prison officials affirmed it was and began letting responders through the prison gates.

"Per supervisors here at the DEC (Department of Emergency Communications) we have been informed it is a false call," one unidentified person says at 9:03pm. "There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison." Four minutes later, a responder reported: "Somebody is outside the gate at the prison telling us that it's real and demanding us to go in. They say they are some sort of state official. I need somebody to get out to the gate and talk to those people." It wasn't until 9:11pm that prison officials affirmed the call for help was legitimate, the calls show. Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She has since been returned to prison.