Before Botched Execution, Concerns About 'Blown' Vein

Tennessee's failed attempt to execute 50-year-old death row inmate Christa Pike is under renewed scrutiny after her lawyer detailed how the IV team repeatedly voiced concern that her vein might have "blown," yet pushed ahead anyway, the Guardian reports. In a sworn account, attorney Randy Spivey says up to 10 needles were used over nearly an hour as staff struggled to establish a line for the lethal pentobarbital, at one point discarding a bent needle and at another asking for "the longest you've got."

Pike at one point cried, "I feel like my arm is about to bust. It burns." He says one arm appeared to be purple below the elbow, WKRN reports. She remained alive after the drug was administered on Sept. 30, gasping and making choking sounds. She spent 10 days in the hospital and is believed to be the only person to survive a full dose of a lethal injection drug. The episode, along with another failed Tennessee execution in May, is fueling a court challenge to the state's lethal injection protocol—which does not specify what to do if two doses of pentobarbital fail, the AP reports—and has led Gov. Bill Lee to pause all executions pending review.