Tennessee execution team reported vein damage before administering lethal drugs

Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol lacks specific guidance for inmates who survive two doses of pentobarbital, a gap exposed during the September 30 execution attempt of Christa Pike. A court document filed Thursday details how execution team members struggled to insert IV lines and warned that Pike’s veins may have ruptured before the first lethal drug was administered.

Attorney Randy Spivey stated that the medical team used approximately ten needles and attempted several sites on both of Pike’s arms. The team had difficulty pushing saline through the final IV site they established. Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital during the September 30 attempt. She was convicted in the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer, a crime for which she was 18 years old.

The filing provides a minute-by-minute account of the procedure. The team began attempting to place the two required IV lines at 6:34 p.m. An IV was set in Pike’s right arm within six minutes, but the left arm took nearly an hour. Spivey wrote that Pike wincing and grimacing as team members moved needles, and that staff frequently voiced doubts about the procedure. At 6:57 p.m., one team member suggested a vein might be blowing, while two others were unsure. A later needle appeared severely bent upon removal, and at 7:07 p.m., a team member stated, I think it’s blown. The team confirmed a successful IV placement in the left arm at 7:13 p.m.

Phone calls to the execution chamber started about five minutes after the IV was placed. Spivey noted that team members in an adjoining room repeatedly asked the IV team to check Pike’s left arm. It is unclear when the pentobarbital entered the lines, but at 7:34 p.m., Pike said, I feel like my arm is about to bust. It burns. After speaking with her spiritual adviser for about 10 minutes, she began making an agitated snoring sound. Over the next 30 minutes, Pike strained, flinched, moved her head, and appeared to struggle to breathe, according to Spivey.

Spivey requested to use a phone to call other attorneys but was taken on a seven-minute route through the facility instead of being allowed to use the phone in the witness room. At 8:22 p.m., he called his colleagues to request that the execution stop, noting that a third dose is not authorized under state protocol. He also told the deputy attorney general that Pike needed immediate medical care. He was informed at 8:50 p.m. that an ambulance was on the way and that medical staff were performing life-saving measures about 20 minutes later. An ambulance arrived at the hospital at 9:14 p.m.

The filing was submitted in a separate legal challenge to Tennessee’s lethal injection procedures brought by people on death row. Kit Thomas, an attorney representing those inmates, stated that their predictions about the likelihood of botched executions have come true and will continue to come true without substantial change. Pike was placed on a ventilator for several days after the attempt and was at one point considered to have a low chance of survival. She regained consciousness, was discharged from the hospital, and has since returned to prison.

The state’s protocol requires a second dose of pentobarbital if the first does not cause death, but it does not specify procedures for survivors of the second injection. Pike’s case underscores the procedural ambiguities in Tennessee’s execution process, particularly regarding medical monitoring and communication during the administration of lethal drugs. The detailed timeline in the filing offers the most comprehensive public account of the internal operations during the September 30 attempt.