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Doctor who warned Christa Pike her execution could go wrong wants to ask her one question now she's awake
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A doctor who had warned of the risks of a lethal injection for Christa Pike has revealed the one question he would ask her now.
As previously reported, Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital after an execution attempt went drastically wrong.
Pike was due to be executed on September 30 after spending 30 years on death row for a murder she committed as a teenager.
However, officials struggled to place an IV line in her arm ahead of the execution, with witnesses claiming at least seven needles had been used, one of which allegedly came out of her arm bent.
Pike remained alive after the second dose of pentobarbital was administered, with witnesses saying she was heard snoring before she was rushed to hospital.
After spending several day unconscious, Pike woke up and was able to speak and even stand, and has since been discharged back to Tennessee's Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Centre, where she has spent the last three decades.
Prior to Pike's execution attempt, she and her legal team had mounted several appeals against her having the lethal injection, over fears her thrombocytosis would make it harder for an IV line to be successfully placed and increase her risk of suffering.
However, all of her appeals were denied and the state decided to press ahead with the execution attempt, which ended in failure despite two doses of pentobarbital being administered.
During the execution attempt, witnesses recounted Pike complaining of pain in her arm at the IV site, and continuing to snore loudly after the injections were administered.
Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta, Georgia, was the medical expert who'd warned the state of the risks associated with giving Pike the lethal injection.
He told the Mail on Sunday that he is firmly opposed to any possible future attempts to execute Pike with the lethal injection, adding: "I’ve always taken the position that this [lethal injection] really is an effrontery to the practice of medicine.
"This is a sinister impersonation of medical practice."
On the day of her planned execution - September 30 - Pike had been given a temporary stay just an hour before it was due to begin, which was later overturned, allowing the process to start later in the evening.
Zivot added: "As the day of the execution wore on, I was watching the clock and thinking, 'Well, it must be starting now.'
"I sent an e-mail to one of the lawyers and said, 'Can you keep me updated if this goes awry?' Because, you know, I thought it might. Within five minutes, he replied, 'It has gone awry.'"
After the two doses failed to end Pike's life, she was rushed to hospital where medics battled to keep her alive.
Zivot said of the turnaround: "I suppose everyone was doing their job. The state was doing its job in trying to kill her and the doctors were doing their job in trying to save her."
One of the key arguments in Pike's appeals was that the law states the punishment she received must not be cruel, which it could be argued was what happened to her.
Zivot revealed the one question he would ask Pike now that she has survived the lethal injection, explaining: "Here’s an opportunity to ask someone, 'What you were subjected to, did you experience that as cruel or not?' I’d like to ask her that question."
Currently, it is not known whether Pike will face execution again, and her lawyers have pushed for her sentence to be commuted to life in prison instead.