Christa Pike Awakens and Speaks After Failed Execution in Tennessee

Death row inmate Christa Pike has spoken for the first time since losing consciousness during a failed execution attempt last week, revealing what she recalls of the ordeal. Pike, 50, woke on Tuesday, October 6, but is still in critical condition after receiving two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital. The Tennessee prisoner's legal team said she was awake and able to communicate after nearly a week of unconsciousness. According to her attorneys, Pike remains handcuffed to her hospital bed and has sustained severe damage to her arms, having been struck with at least seven needles during the unsuccessful execution. "Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery," her legal team stated on Tuesday. Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist consulting for her defense, told The Sun on Wednesday that Pike had been removed from a ventilator and described her condition. "She's breathing on her own, I think she's on some supplemental oxygen, but not what she required initially," he said. "She's talking, she apparently knows at least who she is, and now knows where she is. She does not have any memory of the execution itself, but does have some memory of at least being a patient in the hospital on a ventilator." Zivot added that it is too soon to determine whether Pike might regain memories of the execution or return to her previous state. He noted that her condition will significantly affect her future, and that the full extent of her injuries is not yet known. "If Christa Pike returns to her normal neurologic self – that is to know who she is, where she is and what she's done – then she certainly faces the prospect of another attempt at executing her," he explained. Pike had been scheduled for execution on September 30. Had it been carried out, she would have become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Before she regained consciousness, her attorney Stephen Ferrell told CNN's Jake Tapper that a key question remained about what she experienced during the failed procedure. "We don't know right now, and we may never know, what sort of torture she endured during that process," he said. Pike spent 30 years on death row for the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old college classmate Colleen Slemmer, whom she tortured, bludgeoned, carved a pentagram into, and from whom she took part of the skull as a keepsake. Last Wednesday, Pike was given two supposedly lethal doses of pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. However, she remained alive and was loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection. She was then taken to a hospital, where she was unconscious and on a ventilator in critical condition. May Martinez, Slemmer's mother, reacted to the news that Pike was awake, saying she had always known Pike would not die. Martinez also said she does not think the state will make another attempt to execute her daughter's killer. "It doesn't matter what I think," she told NBC affiliate WBIR when asked about her preferred outcome. "They're going to do what they're going to do."