Execution team warned Christa Pike’s veins may have ruptured before drug injection

Christa Pike spent nearly an hour in a Tennessee execution chamber on September 30 while staff struggled to establish intravenous access in her arms.

The details emerge in a court document filed Thursday by attorney Randy Spivey, which provides the most specific account yet of the failed lethal injection attempt.

Spivey wrote that the medical team used approximately 10 needles at various sites on both of Pike’s arms. He noted that the team even had difficulty pushing saline through the final IV site they successfully placed.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital during the attempt. She was hospitalized for several days, spent time on a ventilator, and has since returned to prison.

The filing describes the timeline of the procedure beginning at 6:34 p.m. Spivey said the team secured an IV in Pike’s right arm within six minutes. The process in her left arm took nearly an hour.

During the difficult insertion, Spivey reported that Pike wincing and grimacing as staff moved needles around. He recorded that a team member stated a vein might be blowing at 6:57 p.m. A later needle appeared severely bent when removed.

At 7:07 p.m., a member of the team said, I think it’s blown. The group decided at 7:13 p.m. that the left IV was in place. Phone calls to the chamber began about five minutes later.

Spivey claimed staff pushing the drug from an adjoining room repeatedly asked the IV team to check Pike’s left arm. It is unclear exactly when the pentobarbital entered the lines. At 7:34 p.m., Pike said, I feel like my arm is about to bust. It burns.

For the next 30 minutes, Spivey said Pike strained, flinched, moved her head, and appeared to struggle to breathe. He was taken on a seven-minute route through the facility to use a phone instead of using the one in the witness room.

At 8:22 p.m., Spivey called his colleagues to stop the execution, noting that a third dose was not authorized. He told the deputy attorney general that Pike needed immediate medical care. An ambulance arrived at the hospital at 9:14 p.m.