Explained: Why didn’t Christa Pike die despite two lethal injections? The first such case in 207 years | Today’s news

Christa Pike was scheduled to be executed Wednesday night in Tennessee, but after two injections of pentobarbital, she remained alive, breathing, making snoring sounds and complaining only that her arms hurt.

Pike, sentenced to death for torturing and killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995, said she was calm when the lethal injection began.

Pike, now 50, was 18 when she committed the murder. She would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Instead, she left the prison in an ambulance, not a hearse. Here’s what happened during the botched execution and why Pike didn’t die.

What happened during the execution?

The Associated Press witnessed the botched execution. Pike was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in hand when prison officials raised the curtain to the execution room at 7:27 p.m.

Minutes passed. Pike raised her head, looked around and smiled.

Then she said her arm hurt and asked the prison official if it was supposed to be like that.

At 7:37 p.m., about 10 minutes after the execution began, she sighed. The infusion solution in her arm was fed from a control room adjacent to the death chamber.

At 19:46 the officials drew the curtain.

Three minutes later he rose again. Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol requires a second round of pentobarbital if the inmate has not died after the first round.

But Pike was still alive. She had been breathing for over an hour. Pike seemed to be losing consciousness and started snoring.

At about 7:56 p.m., she lifted her head slightly from the stretcher and turned to the side. She kept breathing.

Officials drew the curtain again at 8:06 p.m

Read also | Tennessee execution botched: What happens next to Christy Pike?

For the next 40 minutes, Pike could be heard from behind the curtain making what sounded like rhythmic snoring.

Around 8:22 p.m., Pike’s attorney, Randy Spivey, said he was requesting access to the phone so he could contact other attorneys on the team. He said he demanded that the execution be stopped and that Pike receive life-saving medical treatment.

Fire trucks and ambulances arrived outside the prison around 9:14 p.m. Pike’s attorneys later said she was taken to a hospital and treated. As of Thursday afternoon, they said he was in critical condition.

Why didn’t the lethal injection work?

Tennessee authorities have not explained what happened.

The Tennessee Department of Corrections said the department followed protocol. “The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has been consistently effective and the protocol does not allow for further procedures beyond what was done tonight,” the agency said.

Stafford Smith, who has attended several executions in support of clients, told Al Jazeera that there were two likely reasons for the failure.

“The first is that the drugs were probably out of date,” he said, adding that this was something “we’ve seen a lot over the last 10 years”.

Smith said drug companies make sedatives like pentobarbital to help people and save lives, and are often opposed to their drugs being used to execute people.

The second option, Smith said, involved Pike’s veins. “She went through a lot of abuse and drug abuse. So it could have been very difficult to find her veins and get the needle in them,” he said.

Read also | Christy Pike case: Tennessee’s historic execution halted at last minute

Review of Governor’s orders

Gov. Bill Lee ordered a review and postponed another execution scheduled for later this year, calling what happened in the death chamber “deeply troubling.”

For Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, the botched execution meant the sentence had not been carried out.

“I didn’t get justice for my daughter,” Martinez told the AP.

“I watched the whole thing. She was awake,” she said. “She was moving her head, moving her legs. She was trying to sit up.”

“The first time it didn’t work when they gave her the shot. The second time it didn’t work, so she’s in the hospital and alive.”

“This is not justice for Colleen.