Christa Pike has spoken out for the first time since her botched execution in Tennessee, sharing she “woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain” days after she survived two lethal injections.
In a statement shared by her legal team on Friday, October 30, exactly one month after the state’s attempt to execute her, Pike, 50, expressed feeling constant physical, mental and spiritual pain.
Pike said she was “prepared to die” when she entered the execution chamber at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on September 30.
“I had made my peace. I had told the people who loved me, supported me and stood by me through the years I was grateful for them. I had also told the people in the room and who were there to witness my execution that I was leaving them in loving kindness,” Pike said.
Pike went on to describe the persistent pain she said she’s felt since she survived, and also addressed the family of Colleen Slemmer, the 19-year-old classmate Pike was convicted of killing in 1995.
“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.
“I had not contemplated life beyond that night, and I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position. I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured,” she continued.
Pike was sentenced to death at the age of 18 for Slemmer’s murder.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, traveled to Tennessee from Florida to witness Pike’s execution.
“It was a mess,” Martinez told NBC News after the botched attempt.
After Pike survived two lethal injections of pentobarbital, she was taken to a medical facility alive, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction. State protocols prevented further attempts to execute her following the two doses.
Pike spent 10 days in the hospital before she was sent back to prison.
In her statement, Pike said that she’s recovering and regaining strength, but that “healing is not the same as being OK.”
She said she’s experiencing isolation in the prison’s medical ward, describing her situation as similar to her time spent in solitary confinement on Tennessee’s death row.
“Since that night, I have been largely isolated in the prison’s medical ward, away from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me. That isolation brings its own kind of pain. I spent 28 years in solitary confinement and much of what I am experiencing today is a repeat of that condition,” Pike wrote in her statement.
Pike also said she’s now “searching for meaning in what happened.”
She thanked medical personnel for caring for her in the hospital, as well as her attorneys.
“I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next. Some days, finding hope is harder than others. For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time. And I am holding on to the love and kindness of so many people who have reminded me that I am not alone,” Pike wrote at the end of her statement.
Her statement can be read in full on her defense team’s social media page.
