Attorney says execution team warned Christa Pike's veins may have 'blown' before lethal injection

Members of a Tennessee execution team repeatedly failed to establish working IV lines in Christa Pike's arms and cautioned that some of her veins might have ruptured, or "blown," before the lethal drug was administered, according to her attorney. The account appears in a court document filed Thursday, which offers the most detailed description yet of the attempted execution.

Attorney Randy Spivey wrote that the IV team used about 10 needles and tried several sites on both of Pike's arms. He added that the team even had trouble pushing saline through the final IV site they set up.

Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital when the state tried to put her to death on Sept. 30. She was convicted in the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time, when she tortured and killed Slemmer with her boyfriend, and she became one of the youngest women ever sentenced to death.

Tennessee's protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first does not cause death, but it does not say what should happen if a person survives the second injection. After the attempt, Pike was placed on a ventilator for several days, and at one point her attorneys did not expect her to live. She regained consciousness and has since returned to prison after being discharged from the hospital.

The filing was submitted in a separate case in which people on Tennessee's death row are challenging the state's lethal injection procedures. Kit Thomas, an attorney representing them, said: "Our predictions about the likelihood of botched executions have come true, and will continue to come true, without substantial change."

According to Spivey, the team began trying to place the two IVs required by the protocol at 6:34 p.m. When they struggled, Pike helped by suggesting they look in her upper arm for a usable vein. An IV was set in her right arm in about six minutes, but the left arm took nearly an hour.

Spivey wrote that Pike was "wincing and grimacing" as team members moved needles around in her left arm, and that they often voiced doubts. At 6:57 p.m., one member said a vein "might be blowing," though two others could not tell. A later needle appeared severely bent when removed, and at 7:07 p.m. a team member said, "I think it's blown." The team decided at 7:13 p.m. that an IV was successfully placed in her left arm.

Phone calls to the execution chamber began about five minutes later. Spivey said the team members pushing the drug from an adjoining room seemed to be asking the IV team to check Pike's left arm repeatedly. It is unclear when the pentobarbital entered the lines, but at 7:34 p.m. Pike said, "I feel like my arm is about to bust. It burns." About 10 minutes after continuing to speak with her spiritual adviser, she began making an "agitated snoring sound."

Over the following 30 minutes, Pike strained, flinched, moved her head and appeared to struggle to breathe, Spivey said. When he asked to use a phone, he was taken on a seven-minute route through the facility rather than allowed to use the phone in the witness room. At 8:22 p.m. he called fellow attorneys and asked them to stop the execution, noting a third dose is not authorized, then told the deputy attorney general that Pike needed immediate medical care.

Spivey was told at 8:50 p.m. that an ambulance was on the way, and about 20 minutes later that medical staff were performing life-saving measures. An ambulance was seen arriving at the hospital at 9:14 p.m.