Christa Pike survived two doses of lethal injection in September (Image: Tennessee Department of Correction/AFP via Getty Images)
The attorneys of US death row inmate Christa Pike warned her lethal injection could be complicated by a rare form of cancer, months before her botched execution, reports say. The failed execution of convicted killer Pike, 50, in September sparked international outrage.
Nine months before Pike was due to be put to death in Tennessee, her lawyers filed a complaint warning lethal injection could be especially painful and dangerous due to a disorder linked to her condition, according to reports. In her first public comments since the botched lethal injection, Pike last week said she has been left in constant pain and is struggling to speak.
In a recently-filed motion, she also reportedly pleaded with the courts not to send her back to her old prison block, saying she is “afraid” she will be seriously hurt as she cannot defend herself. According to US reports, Pike’s lawyers on January 8 submitted a complaint arguing her planned execution was a violation of the First, Eighth and Fourteenth amendments.
They warned any attempt to inject Pike would be “very likely to result in unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace”, according to PEOPLE. The complaint, a copy of which was seen by the outlet, also said Pike had cancer.
The complaint reportedly said Pike’s “platelet count is significantly elevated, likely due to a rare form of blood cancer called myeloproliferative disorder”. It is reported the lawyers argued her thrombocytosis diagnosis — a condition characterised by elevated platelet levels — could increase the risk of pulmonary edema, a potentially dangerous buildup of fluid in the lungs during a lethal injection.
Christa Pike said she has been in constant pain following the failed execution (Image: WVLT 8)
“A pulmonary edema is not simply painful or uncomfortable; it can create a sense of suffocating or drowning that has been likened by experts to the sensation intentionally induced by the practice of waterboarding—an unambiguous form of outright torture,” Pike’s lawyer said in the filing, according to PEOPLE.
The complaint also reportedly warned of issues with Pike’s veins, writing she has “a history of difficulty with blood draws and needle insertion”. Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital that her lawyers say probably didn’t enter her bloodstream correctly and instead pooled in her arms, leaving them burned and blistered.
Unconscious, she was hospitalised on a ventilator for days, and at one point her lawyers said they didn’t expect her to survive. Pike is believed to be the only person to survive an execution attempt by lethal injection.
Pike and her boyfriend tortured and stabbed a 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer, to death in 1995. Pike was 18 at the time, making her one of the youngest women sentenced to death and the first woman scheduled to be executed in the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years.
In her first public statement after the failed execution, Pike said she was “deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position”. She continued: “There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Pike said she also “continues to think about my victim’s family” and the “terrible pain and loss they have endured”.
