NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Members of Tennessee’s execution team struggled for nearly an hour to set an IV line in Christa Pike’s arm and warned that a vein might have ruptured before the lethal drug was given, according to a court filing made Thursday by her attorney.
The account, written by her lawyer, is the most detailed public description yet of the Sept. 30 attempt to execute Pike, now 50, who survived two doses of pentobarbital. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of a classmate, committed when Pike was 18.
According to the filing, the IV team started at 6:34 p.m. and placed a line in her right arm within about six minutes, but needed close to an hour for the left arm. The team used roughly 10 needles across several sites on both arms. At 6:57 p.m., a team member warned that a vein might be giving way, and at 7:07 p.m. another said it appeared to be blown. A needle came out badly bent. The team declared the left-arm line in place at 7:13 p.m.
Pike said her arm hurt at 7:34 p.m. Over the next half hour she appeared to strain and struggle to breathe, the filing says. Her lawyer called colleagues at 8:22 p.m. to ask that the execution be halted, because the state protocol allows only two doses and does not say what to do if a person survives both. Pike spent several days on a ventilator before returning to prison.
The filing is part of a lawsuit by people on death row challenging the 2025 lethal injection protocol in Davidson County court. Their attorneys asked this week to amend their complaint to add problems from executions carried out under the protocol, arguing the state can no longer call those risks speculative. The state is asking the court to throw the case out.
Pike’s own lawyers are also seeking to update a separate suit. The Department of Correction wants a Nov. 8 cutoff for that, and the judge canceled a Friday hearing and said she would rule without oral arguments.
Section: More Nashville TN crime news
Filed under: Nashville TN Crime News
